MHA: No foreign funds for KP Yohannan’s Believers Church | Times Of india

KOCHI:The Believers Church, founded by K P Yohannan, and three NGOs associated with it have been barred from bringing in foreign funds to India with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) cancelling their FCRA registrations.The church authorities, however, said the registrations were subject to renewal.

These NGOs Ayana Charitable Trust (formerly Gospel For Asia), Love India Ministries and Last Hour Ministry – are among 4,864 organisations that lost their FCRA registrations, which allow them to receive funds from foreign donors, during 2017, according to the MHA website.

Of these, 126 are from Kerala.

Confirming this, Fr Sijo Panthapallil, spokesperson of Believers Church, told ToI over phone from Delhi: “We are not bringing foreign funds, as there is a standing revision order [on the FCRA registrations, normally given for a five-year period and then renewed thereafter.]” During FY16, Believers Church and associated organisations had received a whopping Rs 1,348.65 crore as foreign aid. In fact, Ayana Charitable Trust (formerly Gospel For Asia) was the single largest recipient of foreign aid in the country as it received Rs 826.27 crore during the year. Similarly, Believers Church had received Rs 342.64 crore, Last Hour Ministry Rs 103.51 crore and Love India Ministries Rs 76.23 crore during FY16.

The statutory filings with the MHA showed that all these four organisations of Yohannan are very rich.

Between these companies, they had registered a total cash inflow of Rs 2,397.33 crore during FY16, which includes fresh foreign funds, transfers from other local sources and contributions brought forward from the previous year and their interest.

During the January-March period of 2017, Believers Church received Rs 192.50 crore and a further Rs 24.28 crore between April and June of 2017, the FCRA data showed.