Singapore Today
·3 min read

Kong Hee and his “love gifts”

New day in court and new revelations about CHC.

Kong Hee has revealed that he and wife Sun Ho received “love gifts” from some members of the church amounting up to $2.8 million through 2006 to 2009. These offerings were donated by about 40 various donors, most of whom have remained anonymous. The money was placed in a Multi-purpose Account (MPA) and withdrawn directly by the husband and wife.

Kong also revealed that wife Sun Ho earned about $400,000 as a singer, however the donors did not know Sun Ho actually earned from the MPA. The MPA was shrouded in secrecy throughout its existence from 2006 to 2010 before it was closed. Kong explained that the MPA was used for their livelihoods and not for Sun’s musical expenses, although we all know no amount of money would be able to make that boat sea-worthy.

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Kong and Sun had struck their names of the church’s payroll, a move that the congregation probably saw as an honourable move, Kong was in 2005 drawing a salary of $8,000 a month. What they didn’t know was that there was an account set up for such “love gifts”. It is known that all members of the congregation give a percentage as tithes depending on income level, what is probably not known is that those that had provided with “love gifts” were not obligated to continue giving tithes. Only a rare few close enough to the church leader knew of the existence of the MPA.

“All the donors, they knew that it’s a freewill giving, we didn’t coerce them, we didn’t force them… We always treated this as a third-party fund with accountability… We do not use it in a cavalier fashion.” – Kong Hee
Meaning, that the donors never knew where their money went or how it was being spent. Most of the donors probably didn’t care, it was their money to give after all. Such an example would be blogger Miss Lu, the mother of three, whose blog is called Mum’s The Word, told The NewPpaper: “The choice was given to us and it was also explained to us where the money would go. I made the decision that it was okay, because this is my money and I know where I want it to go. I gave with my free will. No one forced me to do it.”

And she’s right, she can choose to give her money to whomever she wants, it is her choice. She also went on to compare her donations akin to contributing to an office fund for a boss’s birthday.

Former CHC fund manager Chew accused Kong of withholding the account’s full details in 2010 by hiding the royalties, salaries and bonuses from the spreadsheet showed to donors and showing a deficit instead, so they would be spurred to give more money.
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Chew said: “You defrauded the MPA givers by hiding the royalties and the salaries and the bonuses from the spreadsheet which you showed to them, so that they would be emotionally led to contribute more to you and to Sun.”

It was also explained that while private trust funds or donations to church are not taxed, “love gifts” given to a church leader by a devotee solely for the use of the leader is not considered a donation as the donors aren’t relatives. And unless the fund is open to the whole church to be used to help the less fortunate or those in need then this pool of money is solely exclusive to the leader making this an income structure instead of a gift, thus making it taxable.

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Judging from this infographic below you can tell how personally and exclusively the money was spent by the couple on luxury.

mpa1Especially liked how the only clear zero figures fall under the “Humanitarian donations” section. They’ve spent more on “Hair & make-up” than they did to goodwill, a blessed union indeed.

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