NFCorp directors snub PAC, absent from meeting

By Shannon Teoh

March 20, 2012

 

KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 — The directors of the controversial National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) did not turn up to face Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today, and instead sent two lawyers and the company’s administrative manager to the scheduled meeting.

PAC chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid said the panel had asked the trio representing the company owned by Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family how the RM250 million federal loan meant for a cattle-farming scheme was spent.

“But they said they were not ready to answer questions,” Azmi (picture) told reporters after the one-hour meeting.
Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat and her family have been dogged by allegations of misusing public funds to finance over RM60 million in land, property and expenses unrelated to the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) cattle-farming project.

The project was awarded to Shahrizat’s family in 2006 when she was part of Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Cabinet.

Azmi, the Padang Besar MP, said Shahrizat’s husband and NFCorp chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail and his three children were still “invited” to face the committee but if they failed to respond, the PAC would use its powers to summon them.

Sections 16 and 17 of the Houses of Parliament Act give it powers to order witnesses or evidence to be presented before Parliament or any of its committees.

“We threw the law at the lawyers who were ‘dumbfounded’ by the powers of Parliament,” another PAC member told The Malaysian Insider.