NFC paid RM600,000 credit card bill for Shahrizat’s family

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 — PKR continued to press today for Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family to be suspended from managing the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), claiming they used nearly RM600,000 from the federally-funded project to pay for their credit card bills in 2009.


PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli said in a statement today the Wanita Umno chief’s husband and three children, who sit on the NFC board, used funds from the RM250 million cattle farming project to pay credit card bills averaging over RM10,000 per month each across the year.

“Exposures such as this will continue until Datuk Seri Najib Razak acts to signal that the prime minister and his Cabinet accept full responsibility for the misappropriation in NFC,” he said.

PKR has repeatedly accused Shahrizat’s family of abusing public funds in the past two months including at least RM27 million to buy land and property unrelated to cattle farming.

Rafizi (picture) said today NFC released RM182,525, RM160,673, RM127,900 and RM122,402 to pay credit card bills belonging to Shahrizat’s husband and NFC chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh and her three children respectively in 2009.

The women, family and community development minister took three weeks’ leave last week to allow the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to probe the allegations.

Najib announced on Saturday that NFC’s assets have been frozen but the company’s chief executive and Shahrizat’s son Wan Shahinur Izmir Salleh said it would be “business as usual” yesterday.

Rafizi said today Wan Shahinur’s statement raised questions as to whether the prime minister had made an “empty statement without making specific orders, or that NFC has refused to obey government orders.”

“The NFC statement shows Shahrizat’s family is still free to use funds and manage NFC’s operations, which raises huge risks in affecting evidence and the company’s financial records,” he said.

He said that an asset freeze should mean that all expenses other than wages to employees be frozen and the current management not be allowed to make any decisions on behalf of the company.

“By convention, in corporate practice anyone who is being investigated for breach of trust should not be allowed to enter the office and be suspended immediately to avoid tampering with evidence,” he added.

Shahrizat has denied any wrongdoing and stated she is “only the wife” of the project’s chairman after facing calls to quit from within Umno including from influential former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.