SINGAPORE — Given that fund managers in the corporate world typically report to only one or two key decision makers within a company, why should the onus of keeping City Harvest Church’s (CHC) board members apprised of investment outcomes and decisions fall on him, the mega-church’s former investment manager Chew Eng Han asked in court yesterday.

As the long-running trial of six CHC leaders resumed yesterday after a five-week recess, Chew took pains to deflect blame that prosecutors pinned on him for not being open with outcomes of various investments.

Chew and five other church leaders, including church founder Kong Hee, are accused of misusing more than S$50 million in church building funds to finance Ms Sun Ho’s foray into the United States’ pop music scene, as a way to evangelise — dubbed the Crossover Project. Ms Ho is Kong’s wife and a co-founder of CHC.

The prosecution alleges S$24 million of church funds were used to buy sham bonds in Xtron Productions, which used to manage Ms Ho, and Indonesian glassware company PT The First National Glassware (Firna). Another S$26.6 million was then allegedly circulated through complex transactions to cover up the first sum.

Yesterday, pointing to how Xtron bonds were deemed unredeemable upon maturity, Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong levelled charges at Chew and his co-accused of deceiving CHC’s board and executive members by withholding that the investments were used to fund Ms Ho’s music career.

“Don’t you, as investment manager, have a duty to report back to your investor and say, ‘Well, actually, this investment is not going to be able to be redeemed upon maturity?” the prosecutor asked.

Chew refuted the assertion, arguing that he was merely an “adviser”, who acted on the instructions of Kong and his deputy Tan Ye Peng.

“The picture that the prosecution is throwing at me is that this is my call and, therefore, I am responsible for it. It’s totally not true,” said Chew. There was no way he could be confident that the bonds could be redeemed before securing them as he was not privy to the progress of Ms Ho’s music career in the US, he argued.

Chew also maintained that decisions to channel building funds to the Crossover Project through bonds and the preference to keep investments “as low-profile as possible”, such as by intentionally withholding them from members, were Kong and Tan’s prerogative, and not his.

He added he had suggested to Tan to hold a meeting and explain to members that Xtron bonds were issued to fund the Crossover Project, but it was not taken up.

“Am I a responsible member? I think I’ve done the best I could, Your Honour. I’m placed in a position where I have to defer to authority, to my spiritual pastors ... I’m placed in a position where, either way, I get hit,” Chew said.

Also casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Firna bonds, DPP Ong questioned why Chew and his co-accused persons took it upon themselves to find funds to repay the church when church supporter and Firna owner Wahju Hanafi had signed a personal guarantee on it.

Chew replied: “In the church, we don’t just move on the legal level; we have moral responsibilities to each other, spiritual as well. Not everything needs to be set black and white.”

The trial continues today.