What was a “big factor” for Kong Hee and Sun Ho to go to China?

“Finally, it was a word given by Phil Pringle to Sun privately in May 2005 that gave them clarity to their path. “He said, ‘Five more years, because God is going to open a big door for CHC in China to be a blessing to the people.’ That word gave us the courage, faith and confirmation to resume the Crossover Project,” said Kong.” – Yong Yung Shin, http://www.citynews.sg/2012/05/city-harvest-church-10-years-of-the-crossover-project/, City Harvest Church: 10 Years Of The Crossover Project, 09/05/2012. (Accessed 27/09/2012.)

Here is Kong Hee in 2010 telling people at C3 Presence Conference how prophetic Phil Pringle is and how successful Sun Ho was in China:

“Pastor Phil and Pastor Chris, they carry a spirit of prophecy. And five years ago when my little baby was born, Dayan, and my wife and I were thinking about taking a six month break. Go to Europe. Just backpack. Take little Dayan. We’ve been planting. I mean we’ve been running the church for so long.

And then Pastor Phil came to Singapore. And four months after little Dayan was born, in one of those meetings, the Holy Spirit HIT. And how many of you know that- talking about being dangerous, when the Holy Spirit comes upon Pastor Phil, he gets dangerous. Right?

And he starts prophesying, “Sun! It’s not time for you to stop. You got to go to China.”

And at that word, you know we let go of our nets. And then- so Sun’s been on the road right now. She’s living in the LA. And true enough, China opened up. She became the music ambassador for the Olympic games. Sang at the special olympics. Sang the anthem at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And just last week, I mean – she’s a few months away from launching her début album in America. Just let you know, her first single, last month was number one in the US, number one in the UK on the secular charts. Lets praise God for that! Hallelujah! So we got Pastor Phil to thank for that.” – Kong hee, C3 Presence Conference, Session 4, Sydney, 2010. [Watch video here]

Is this why Kong Hee blamed Phil Pringle for all this mess?

The Straits Times reports,

Kong decided on ‘what money to spend, how much and where it would come from’

SINGAPORE – City Harvest founder Kong Hee was the key decision-maker behind plans to sink church funds into his wife’s Ho Yeow Sun’s music career in the United States, the prosecution said in court on Wednesday.

They also sought to show that Kong closely supervised the other co-defendants. Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong produced a 2007 e-mail in which Kong had berated Tan Ye Peng for failing to ensure that his wife’s China concerts were a success.

“The Beijing and Shanghai events cost us so much money… but at the end, who came? It was a joke!” said Kong in the e-mail. “Time wasted. Efforts wasted. Objectives not met. Money thrown away unnecessarily. I don’t get it. How have we become good stewards of money? We tried to save a few thousands on hotels and (threw) hundreds and thousands on result-less concerts.”

Kong added: “How I wish I can run the whole show the way I run our church (in) the last 18 years! But I can’t… (My wife and I) are putting our lives and destiny at the hands of our disciples, our spiritual children. We hope you guys don’t let us down.”

While Kong has maintained that he was involved only in the budgeting for the US foray and left the fundraising to others, the prosecution alleged that Kong made decisions about “what money to spend, how much and where it would come from”. The prosecution produced statements made by Kong’s co-defendants to the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) to bolster the point.

Kong and five others face various charges for their part in the alleged misuse of some $50 million of church funds to boost Ms Ho’s music career, and then to cover up the deed. Several of them allegedly got the funds out of City Harvest coffers by investing the money in sham bonds issued by two companies, Xtron Productions and Firna, which were run by church members. Xtron was Ms Ho’s artist manager at one time.

While Kong maintained that Xtron directors had to give approval for company transactions to finance her career, statements made by Kong’s co-defendants Serina Wee, Chew Eng Han and Tan to the CAD contradicted this, said the prosecution.

According to the three defendants, Xtron directors were “updated” only after Tan, Wee and Kong had made the decisions. “Xtron directors were not actively involved,” said Chew in his statement. “Technically they can challenge (the decisions), but they would not because they are doing the right thing by giving their full support,” he said.

Kong disagreed. He said that Xtron directors being “updated” meant their approval for the transactions were sought, and in the end it was the directors who had final say over whether the deals were made.

Source: By Feng Zengkun, Kong decided on ‘what money to spend, how much and where it would come from’, The Straits Times, http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/kong-decided-what-money-spend-how-much-and-where-it-would-come-201#sthash.ZMf2fMfG.dpuf, Published on Aug 20, 2014 2:08 PM. (Accessed 21/08/2014.)