DAP claims NFCorp bosses cashed out RM12m from federal loan

UPDATED @ 02:56:14 PM 14-03-2012

By Shannon Teoh

March 14, 2012

Pua questioned why NFCorp directors had formed companies that traded among themselves. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — The DAP revealed today documents that allegedly show Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family had taken out RM12 million in cash from the RM250 million federal loan meant to fund the scandal-ridden National Feedlot Centre (NFC).

The party’s publicity chief, Tony Pua, referring to an audit of the family’s Singapore-based company Global Biofuture, pointed out in a statement here that Shahrizat’s husband, Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail, and their three children owed exactly a sum of RM12 million to the company.

In drawing the link between Global Biofuture and the NFC, Pua noted that the former was among several other companies run by Shahrizat’s family that sourced its funds from the RM250 million NFC loan.

He made the claim based on the RM19 million owed to other companies related to the Wanita Umno chief’s family as stated in the audit of Global Biofuture's finances as of December 31, 2010.

“We have strong reasons to believe that Global Biofuture is part of the ‘Shahrizat family’ group of companies, including National Meat and Livestock, Real Food Company, and Meatworks, all of which source [their] funds from the RM250 million loan,” he said.

The opposition had previously alleged that RM81 million from the loan given to National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp), the firm chaired by Salleh and tasked with operating the NFC, had been siphoned off to these companies.

“There can be no defence at all to the fact the directors have withdrawn a sum of nearly RM12 million directly from Global Biofuture. I am alleging the RM12 million they took is from the NFC loan,” Pua told The Malaysian Insider.

Salleh pleaded not guilty on Monday with criminal breach of trust and violating the Companies Act in relation to RM49 million in federal funds given to NFCorp in a scandal that has opened the Barisan Nasional (BN) government to damaging attacks ahead of elections expected soon.

This was after Shahrizat said on Sunday she would quit as women, family and community development minister when her senatorship ends on April 8.

Her resignation came after four-and-a-half months of being dogged by allegations that she and her family used public funds to finance over RM62 million of land, property and expenses unrelated to cattle farming.

But PKR and DAP immediately called on her to also quit her party posts instead of deceiving the public with a “half-hearted resignation.”

The NFCorp, tasked with running the national cattle farming scheme, is headed by her husband and their three children.

The NFC project in Gemas, Negeri Sembilan, was awarded to the company in 2006, when Shahrizat was in Cabinet.

She had previously resisted calls from the opposition as well as Umno veterans such as Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to quit, stressing that she was “only the wife” of Salleh and had nothing to do with the embattled entity.

NFCorp hit the national headlines after it made it into the Auditor-General’s Report last year for missing production targets.

Shahrizat was appointed as women, community and family minister in 2001 and held the post until 2008, when she lost in the general election.

She was then appointed special advisor to the prime minister on women affairs and social development, before being reassuming her Cabinet portfolio a year later.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP also distributed copies of the purported audit that showed Global Biofuture generated S$2.94 million (RM7.08 million) in sales in the last six months of 2010.

But 97.6 per cent or S$2.87 million (RM7.08) of the sales revenue were to “entities related to a director.”

“The question, hence, arises as to why the directors are setting up a company to essentially sell to themselves.”