By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
Feb 04, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 — A former senior officer questioned today the police’s reluctance to act against Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family in the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal, saying it should only take “hours” to determine if they had misused project funds for their umrah trips.
“Why is the police afraid of taking action against Shahrizat’s (picture) husband and son?” former city CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim wrote in an open letter to the Inspector-General of Police today.
“To check records and determine if Mohamed Salleh (Shahrizat’s husband) and Wan Shahinur (Shahrizat’s son) used RM31,580 in NFC funds to pay for their umrah in November 2010 only needs a few hours of investigation,” he pointed out.
Mat Zain had called on Datuk Seri Najib Razak last week to instruct the police, graftbusters and the Attorney-General to complete investigations into the scandal-hit livestock company within a fortnight.
He said today that to check whether National Feedlot Corporation (NF Corp) paid RM26,400 to Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat only needed “a few minutes of investigations.”
“If this allegation is true, then Shahrizat has lied to the public when denying that she knew about the affairs and management of NFCorp by her husband and children,” he said.
PKR has made a series of exposes on the NFC, including over RM27 million spent on land and property unrelated to cattle farming, since the project was criticised for not meeting targets by the Auditor-General in October 2010.
The opposition party had claimed that Shahrizat’s husband Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail, who is also NFCorp chairman, had ordered payment of RM31,580 to be made for his and his son’s haj pilgrimage in 2010 as well as RM26,400 in expenses for Shahrizat in 2008.
The Wanita Umno chief said yesterday she plans to continue leading the wing and returns to ministerial duties on Monday after taking three weeks’ leave to allow the authorities to complete their probe.