The UK branch of the popular Christ Embassy church has come under the radar as suspicious payments worth N2.14 billion (£4.28 million) made to companies and organisation closely related to the church in 2013 have been discovered by auditors.
The auditors, appointed by the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission which is the regulator of charities in England and Wales, suspended the church’s board of trustees and appointed an interim manager, Rod Weston of the international audit and accounting firm, Mazars, to take over the management of the church in August 2014.
This was as a result of the discovery of controversial payments worth N1.8 billion (£3.6 million) to overseas entities between 2008 and 2012.
Concerns over controversial expenditures made by the church had been previously raised by UK authorities.
At the time, the Charity Commission, issued a statement that it had opened a statutory inquiry to investigate Christ Embassy over “a number of serious concerns relating to the use of charitable funds, in particular large connected party payments and the potential misapplication of grant funding”.
Now, details of the 2013 financial statement, which was approved on 22 January, 2016 and released recently, show that the church aggravated payments similar to those the Charity Commission had flagged as suspicious.
It was revealed that the church incurred an expenditure of £15.9 million, despite making an income of just £14.1 million.
It was further disclosed by Jacob Cavenagh and Skeet, the independent auditors, that part of the expenditure was made to companies and organisations with close relation to the church.
“The audit evidence available to us are limited because we were unable to obtain sufficient evidence to enable us to conclude whether material amount of expenditure made by the charity were charitable expenditure,” the auditors stated.
“The audit evidence available to us are also limited because we were unable to obtain complete and accurate information on related parties. As a result of this we were unable to determine whether further disclosure of related parties and related party transaction should be made in financial statement.
“The audit evidence were also limited because a number of explanations and information requested during our audit could not be provided,” it said.
Some of the suspicious transactions include:
N1.33 billion (£2,679,980) paid to Loveworld Limited for transmission of the church’s broadcast. Interestingly, a trustee of the church, Obioma Chiemeka, is the director and sole shareholder of Loveworld Limited. Mr Chiemeke, a pastor, however resigned as a trustee on 15 October, 2015.
Purchases worth N22.46 million (£44,925) were made from Ventaja Ltd for decorating and the construction of a stage. A pastor of the church, Tony Obi, is the sole shareholder of the Ventaja and his wife Georgine Obi, an employee of Christ Embassy, is a director of the company. Mr Obi, however, resigned as a trustee of the church on 6 November 2015
Finally, a grant of N500.48 million (£1,000,973) given to Healing School, Canada, a trustee of the UK branch of the Church. Ray Okocha, a reverend, is also a trustee of Healing School Canada.
The auditors said they could not obtain “complete and accurate” information on the transactions because the church could not provide explanations and information they requested during the audit.