PKR: Does clearance of Shahrizat incriminate Najib?

Published: May 31, 2012 5:21 PM | Updated: May 31, 2012 5:39 PM

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)’s clearance of former women and family development minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil over the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal may incriminate Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, said two PKR leaders.

“If Shahrizat is not involved (in the scandal), does it mean that Najib has committed breach of trust (without being influenced and requested by Shahrizat) in awarding the RM250 million tender to NFC, which was not qualified?”

This was the question asked by PKR Wanita chief Zuraida Kamaruddin and strategy director Rafizi Ramli in a joint statement today.

The duo was instrumental in exposing the scandal that involved five family members of Shahrizat and a government soft loan of RM250 million.

azlan MACC operations review panel chief Hadenan Abdul Jalil today announced that Shahrizat was not involved in the process to award the National Feedlot Center project and soft loan to NFC, a company owned by Shahrizat’s husband and children.

On the other hand, the panel recommended that a 2009 investigation against PKR deputy president Azmin Ali’s alleged involvement in graft be reopened .

Disappointed with both the decisions, Zuraidah and Rafizi commented that while Shahrizat’s clearance is expected, the decision to reopen Azmin’s case has shown that MACC is nothing more than a BN stooge to persecute top leaders of Pakatan Rakyat prior to the next general election.

The duo pointed out that MACC decided to let Shahrizat off the hook although she was the minister responsible to explain to the Parliament on the process of awarding the tender to her family, but chose to probe Azmin who has been cleared by the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) (now known as MACC) in 1995.

They stressed that the then-ACA director-general Shafee Yahaya had explained that the ACA did not uncover “strong elements of corruption” to warrant prosecution against Azmin, and he had recommended that disciplinary action be taken against Azmin.

“The incidents and facts of the case has been stated clearly in his book ‘ The Shafee Yahaya Story ’ in pages 306, 326 and 356,” said the duo.

Whereas in Shahrizat's case, they said, Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Noh Omar had admitted in Parliament that National Feedlot Centre project was awarded without an open tender by inviting six companies to bid for it.

“Only Felda Farm Products Sdn Bhd has experience in the farming industry, and NFC had just been established.

“Based on general procurement and tender rules of any body, the action to award a tender to a company which is not competent to implement the tender is corruption,” said Rafizi and Zuraidah.

‘High-impact panel committed corruption’

In other words, the high-impact committee headed by Najib, who was the deputy prime minister then, had committed corruption by awarding the RM250 million project to NFC which has no experience in the industry, they claimed.

The duo also believed that the MACC did not question Najib before clearing Shahrizat, although the premier is a major witness in the scandal.

“Instead we feel strange that we were not called to be questioned although we were at the forefront of exposing the NFC’s abuse?

“We believe that the people has made their decision that there was indeed corruption in the case of NFC,” they added.