Tithe times

It became the capstone story of the hundred-dollar note polymer change. If people were willing to wonder how a barber could amass a million-dollar collection of blue notes, they were sent into a tailspin of confusion over 29 copy paper boxes full of blue notes delivered to the Central Bank by Pastor Vinworth Dayal just minutes before the deadline for converting old bills.

That $28 million collection, alleged to be the result of 40 years of tithing by the pastor, raised alarms at the Financial Intelligence Branch of the TT Police Service and the Financial Intelligence Unit who had been on the alert for suspicious cash exchanges. The police immediately seized the boxes of cash and on Thursday, searched the Third Exodus Assembly Church and the pastor's Ocean Avenue home in Gulf View, La Romaine. Investigators took documents from the home and seized large sums of cash in lesser denominations at the church in thousands of envelopes.

Tithes are donations given to a church to support its operations and its charitable and community works by its congregation. Tithing began with agriculture and has evolved into cash donations in modern religion, guiding worshippers to offer a tenth of their income to the work of their church. The financial assets held by Dayal are subject to the "explain your wealth" law (the Non-Profit Organisations Act) which became legislation in April 2019.

Wits on social media weighed in that the only possible vindication would be for the money in the boxes to bear the signatures of previous Central Bank governors, reaching all the way back to the late Victor Bruce.

The Inter-religious Organisation (IRO) was not amused, and Dr Knolly Clarke, the head of the coalition body worried that "people will think we are frauds and that the religious community is not upholding its integrity." Distancing the IRO from the Longdenville church as a non-member, Clarke noted that while churches are tax-exempt, they are governed by formal business practices and accountability to their congregations.

Other denominational collectives, including the Pentecostal Assembly of the West Indies, the Faith-Based Network, Open Bible Standard Churches and ASJA have come forward to emphasise the importance of structure, systems and accountability in the collection of public contributions.

The Third Exodus Assembly Church is not one of the 16 churches listed on the Companies Register. In December 2018, tax attorney Claude Denbow warned that 75 per cent of small churches operating in TT were not registered and had no system of accounting or requirements for accountability for the cash they collected.

In light of this week's developments, the State may have to take a closer look at the business of churches to protect their followers.