Church Crisis: It's all about Money

This report was published in the Star newspaper in Malaysia

Crisis rocks Calvary Church

By CHARLES FERNANDEZ and STUART MICHAEL

THE Calvary church in Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur, is rocked with controversy over alleged mismanagement of funds.

A group of church members, who call themselves the Truth, Transparency and Good Governance Group (TTG), is demanding for accountability and transparency over the use of church funds from the Calvary Church’s Board of Deacons (BOD) led by senior pastor (SP) Rev. Tan Sri Prince Guneratnam...

Futuristic: An artist impression of space ship-like Calvary Convention Centre (CCC) , a project by Malaysian architect Datuk Dr Ken Yeang.

The CCC, the TTG claims, has been dogged by controversy right from the beginning. The project was supposed to cost RM50mil, excluding land cost, but this has now ballooned to RM150mil.

Although the project started with much hope for a new beginning for the Calvary Church, work on the project subsequently took a bad turn.

The project, which was scheduled to have been completed by October this year, is now left temporarily abandoned due to the stoppage of work by the main contractor since April this year. Two Sundays ago, the pastors announced that the church had issued a Notice of Default to the main contractor,

“The church commenced the project, knowing right from the start that there were not enough funds to complete it. Despite selling some properties and obtaining a bank loan, the church still has to continue raising a lot of funds to finish this extravagant project.”

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