Even more shocking, NFC paid for Shahrizat's RM10mil luxury Bangsar condo

This is one skirmish that Umno Senator Shahrizat Jalil is bound to lose.

Despite calling on her friends - Prime Minister Najib Razak, Agriculture minister Noh Omar and Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin - to counter the "political agenda" of the opposition that she alleges is aimed to weaken her Women's wing, all eyes are now how she will explain an RM10million super-luxury condo paid with funds from the NFC beef production project.

“They said the RM250 million loan for the project was in a tightly-controlled account. Is the condominium for cows to live in?” PKR secretary general Saifuddin Nasution told a press conference in the Parliament lobby on Thursday.

Cast-iron - it was a cash purchase

Saifuddin, who is also the Machang MP, Nasution said the luxury apartment at One Menerung, Bangsar was recorded by in the books of the NFC or National Feedlot Centre as part of a RM83 million “loan” to NMLC, which is controlled by Shahrizat's family.

The project aimed to raise local supply of beef to 40 per cent of consumption was awarded to Shahrizat's husband Mohamad Salleh Ismail and cher hildren to manage and oversee.

PKR has been sounding the alarm bells on the project, but was snubbed in Parliament by the BN MPs. However, a recently released Auditor General's report for 2010 confirmed PKR's allegation. The AG said the project was in a "mess" and had fallen far short of its production target.

On Tuesday, PKR revealed that more than RM83 million was siphoned off from NFC to companies controlled by Shahrizat’s husband, such as NMLC and RPC. It also questioned the RM3million discount granted to RPC, which in turn owns Meatworks, a fine-dining outlet also owned by Shahrizat's family.

Saifuddin told reporters today that RM9,758,140 was transferred from NFC’s CIMB account in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Raya Developments Berhad on December 2, 2009 as full payment for the One Menerung condo.

“It was not from a special trust account. So the Umno Youth chief and minister’s explanations are false. If strict monitoring had occurred, surely RM9.8 million cannot be transferred to buy a luxury condo that has nothing to do with cattle farming. This is a clear breach of trust by Shahrizat’s family,” said Saifuddin.

Khairy the most two-faced?

Just Wednesday evening, Khairy - whose supporters claim the Oxford-graduate is now a 'transformed' and 'cleansed' Umno leader - insisted that the soft loan could only be disbursed after the NFC tabled a working paper and the transaction was approved by the Finance ministry.

Noh had also said that only RM135 million had been drawn by the NFC as the funds have been placed in an escrow account. Najib, the Finance minister, too denied the government soft loan had already been fully disbursed to NFC.

"Khairy's justification of the inter-company balance of RM83 million owed by National Meat and Livestocks Corporation Sdn Bhd (NMLC) is the weakest," PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli had said in a statement.

"If his claim that there were proper authorization procedures in place before a withdrawal from the “escrow account which is not an escrow account” can be made is true, there should not have been personal expenses charged as inter-company transactions. Unfortunately, our scrutiny of the bank accounts points to numerous personal transactions unrelated to the meat business that should not have been authorised for withdrawals."

Using brains to bluff rather than defend the people

According to Rafizi, if NFC and RFC have to rely on public subsidies in order to remain commercially competitive, then the whole "grand design of a national feedlot project should not have been approved from the onset as it is clearly not commercially viable".

If the whole point of spending RM250 million of public funds on this national feedlot project is to cut reliance on imported meats, it is common sense that the locally produced meat must be cheaper than imported ones! But it is not, Rafizi added.

Meanwhile, PKR Women's chief Zuraida Kamaruddin has called on Shahrizat to resign and prove that "women have more integrity than the others in BN".

But it highly unlikely that Shahrizat, who is well-known for her 'baggage', will heed her advice.

“The honourable thing for her to do is to resign from government and leave politics given that there will be more exposés on this scandalous project. Only her resignation can save the honour of Wanita Umno members who have become embroiled in this scandal,” said Zuraida, who was also at the press conference with Saifuddin.

"She should be above the rest of her Barisan Nasional and show that women have more credibility and integrity.”

Maria Begum, Malaysia Chronicle