Since 2014, June Chua, 44, has been housing homeless transgender women in a shelter in an effort to help them get their lives back together. She has helped nine such women, and since end of last year, added more structure to her shelter. The women now are attached to social workers who help them get financial aid, and even jobs.

But despite The T Project’s charitable function, Chua has been unable to register the organisation as a non-profit. She tried to register in September last year and got rejected. In September this year, Member of Parliament Lam Pin Min wrote an appeal letter for her.

On Oct 2, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) rejected the appeal, saying the registrar has “refused your registration”.

This means The T Project has missed out on opportunities, such as when a company promises to do a dollar for dollar matching for money raised by an employee. There have also been cases where companies had already done the fundraising only to hit a roadblock when it came to transferring the money to The T Project.

Chua declined to name the companies, but estimates that there is about $14,000 “stuck” until she gets a corporate account.

Said Chua: “Because of corporate governance issues, companies cannot disburse funds to personal accounts.”

“Just $10,000 can sustain us for a few months,” she adds.

As such, for the past three years, The T Project has had to sustain its operations on personal donations simply because Chua could not open a corporate banking account.

In the latest letter from ACRA, the authority cited 20(2)(b) of the Companies Act as a reason why the registration was refused.