DPM tells BN to go all out to win Lembah Pantai, boosting talk Shahrizat to be dropped

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin reminded the BN election machinery in Lembah Pantai to go all out to recapture the seat, prompting talk that Umno Women's chief Shahrizat Jalil will not be fielded in her former stronghold.

Shahrizat, who is also the Women's minister, lost the seat in the 2008 general election to PKR's Nurul Izzah Anwar and is now fighting corruption charges against her family over the National Feedlot Centre debacle.

Speculation has been rife that FT Minister, Senator Raja Nong Chik, might be nominated to take on Nurul, whom pundits say is invincible there. However, due to the sudden huge surge in postal votes, there is concern that Umno might resort to their traditional modus operandi to cheat at the ballot boxes.

Meanwhile, Bernama reported Muhyiddin as saying the fight for Lembah Pantai was expected to be very keen.

The DPM also accused the opposition of resorting to all kinds of tricks to keep the seat, especially through the alternative media where it was making various attempts to run down the BN government.

The BN election machinery must be brave in countering the deceit and lies spread by the opposition, said Muhyiddin.

Discrepancies galore that Najib and Muhyiddin failed to provide answers for

Yet despite documented evidence and a slew of police reports, Prime Minister Najib Razak and his Umno party insists there is no wrongdoing in the RM250mil NFC debacle, where Shahrizat's family was accused of misappropriating public money including using the funds to buy luxury condominiums for themselves, high-end residential land, and making cash transfers to family-owned firms.

Muhyiddin, the Agriculture minister in 2006, had approved and awarded the cattle breeding project to Shahrizat's husband and children.

In his 2010 report released recently, the Auditor-General has made it clear there were weaknesses in the way NFC was being managed, but Umno is trying to squirm out of a corruption probe that can create a shakeup in its ruling elite.

Muhyiddin himself was accused of negligence in awarding the project to the Shahrizats. He has refused to call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry despite growing calls from the public to do so, although he recently agreed to appoint an auditor.

Umno tries to whitewash the NFC corruption

Meanwhile, Transparency International has ticked off the NFC for a recent statement it said aimed to confuse the public, advising the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission to intensify its probe into all related parties.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, who is also the Ipoh Timur MP, also pointed the discrepancies in NFC, demanding an RCI.

"There is something very rotten about the RM336.64 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC)/National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) “cattle condo” scandal – what with a RM250 million soft loan at 2% interest to promote cattle production used to buy two units of luxury condominiums in Kuala Lumpur and another condominium in Singapore, purchase of land in Precinct 10 Putrajaya, close to a million ringgit expenditures on overseas trips and extraordinarily high salaries for the family members of Datuk Seri Shahrizat, Minister for Women, Family and Community Development," said Kit Siang in a statement.

"Second, that very high-level personalities are involved whether in the scandal or in the decision-making process resulting in the scandal, and that the personalities who must clear themselves include not only Shahrizat but also the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak who was then Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on High Impact Projects which approved the NFC project in 2006, Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who was then the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries, Datuk Seri Nor Omar, current Minister for Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries, even the former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah as well as the entire former Cabinet before the 12th General Elections on March 8, 2008.

"Third, the initial reactions of the various authorities unanimously trying to avoid touching the NFC/NF Corp scandal with a “barge pole”, although the Auditor-General, Tan Sri Ambrin Buang signed off the Auditor-General’s Report 2010 on 8th July 2011 with copies sent to the various relevant authorities, including the Cabinet."

Malaysia Chronicle