KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 ― Former minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil may have found an avenue back to corridors of power as she is now set to be appointed as special adviser to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
The yet-to-be announced appointment will also confer Shahrizat (picture) with full ministerial status and powers, according to a report by The Star on its website.
Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat had been appointed women, family and community development minister via her senatorship, but was effectively dropped from the Cabinet in April when this was not renewed following an expose that her family received a RM250 million federal loan to operate the National Feedlot Centre.
This is the second time Shahrizat will be given a political lifeline after having won a similar reprieve in the aftermath of Election 2008, when she was defeated by newcomer Nurul Izzah Anwar in the contest for the Lembah Pantai federal seat.
The NFC scandal hit media headlines two years ago when the Auditor-General’s 2010 Report highlighted the failure of the NFC project in achieving its target of breeding 8,000 head of cattle in Gemas, Negri Sembilan, in 2010, besides noting National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFCorp) management failures.
Shahrizat’s husband Datuk Seri Dr Mohamed Salleh Ismail who chairs the NFCorp, the firm that runs the NFC, and the couple’s children were later alleged to have misused the government allocation of RM250 million for the project.
On March 12 last year, Mohamad Salleh pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust involving some RM49.7 million with regards to the purchase of two condominium units and two other charges under the Companies Act.
Shahrizat had also filed a RM100 million defamation suit against PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli and Wanita PKR chief Zuraida Kamaruddin, two opposition lawmakers who were actively pushing for the former minister’s resignation over the scandal.
Rafizi was pushed into the limelight after exposing NFCorp’s purchases of luxury condominium units allegedly through the RM250 million federal government loan that was meant for the national cattle-farming project.
The trial of Shahrizat’s defamation suit against Rafizi revealed last March that NFCorp had purchased a RM534,622 Mercedes-Benz in 2009 as a company car that was parked in her house.
In the trial, Shahrizat has also defended NFCorp’s purchase of three luxury condominium units in the Orchard Scotts Residences and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore worth RM42 million, saying that the buy was part of the company’s investment portfolio, according to her husband.
The embattled leader will be defending her post in Wanita Umno in the coming party polls and is expected to face a challenge from Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, a former minister.
- malaymail
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