PAC to table report on NFC scandal in two weeks

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will table its findings on the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal in two weeks time.

PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said that the old PAC had finalized the report but the new PAC team, which was formed in July, will need to endorse the report.

Since PAC started fully probing the NFC case sometime in March 2012, the findings have not been made public.

The NFC controversy first broke late 2011 after the Auditor-General’s report that year highlighted the shortcomings of the cattle-farming project.

Furore erupted as National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp), in charge of NFC, was accused of misusing a RM250 million soft loan from the government.

At the centre of the controversy was Wanita UMNO chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil as her family members ran NFCorp.

Shahrizat had quit her Cabinet minister post at the height of the scandal.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Finance told Parliament that the potential takeover of the NFC project by Japanese company Kiritonas Agro Sdn Bhd (KASB) has fallen through due to a failure among the parties concerned to reach an agreement.

In a FZ.com report, PAC member and Petaling Jaya MP Tony Pua had complained that no legal action had been taken on the company or its owners.

"If this is the way (things are going to be), year after year, we will hear the inefficiencies documented in the Auditor-General's Report but we will see no action being taken," he reportedly said.

The only person prosecuted in the case was Shahrizat’s husband, NFCorp chairman Datuk Mohamad Salleh Ismail.

Mohamad Salleh was charged in March, 2012 with four charges, including criminal breach of trust and two offences under the Companies Act, involving the alleged misuse of almost RM50 million.