Shahrizat’s family must underwrite failed Singapore supermarket, says Pua

UPDATED @ 02:52:37 PM 15-03-2012

By Yow Hong Chieh

March 15, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 — Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil’s family must bear the cost of their abortive supermarket venture in Singapore and not the National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp), DAP publicity chief Tony Pua said today.

Singapore’s Straits Times reported today that Farmhouse Supermarket, which is owned by the federal minister’s family, lost its lease in Rochester Mall after it was unable to get its premises ready in time.

Farmhouse Supermarket — which the opposition speculate was set up using money from NFCorp’s RM250 million federal loan — was to have been the anchor tenant in the complex, which officially opened last month.

“Shahrizat’s family should bear the cost (of the loss) as they still own Farmhouse, not NFCorp.

“We hope the losses will be borne by the supermarket’s shareholders and not NFCorp,” Pua(picture) told reporters in the Parliament lobby here.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP also asked Shahrizat’s family to reveal how much was spent setting up the supermarket, which was to have taken up the entire second floor of the mall in Buona Vista.

NFCorp chairman Datuk Mohamad Salleh Ismail — Shahrizat’s husband — was charged on Monday with criminal breach of trust and violating the Companies Act after he allegedly used the cattle-rearing firm’s federal loan for personal expenses.

This came just a day after Shahrizat said she would step down as women, family and community development minister when her term as senator ends on April 8.

Her quit notice came after 4½ months of being dogged by claims that she and her family had used public funds to finance over RM62 million of land, property and expenses unrelated to cattle farming.

NFCorp, which was tasked with running the national cattle-farming scheme, is headed by Shahrizat’s husband and their three children.

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

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

It is understood that another NFCorp top official and two government appointees to its board will be charged later today in relation to the alleged abuse of the company’s RM250 million government loan.