NFCorp hiding assets in Singapore, claims Tony Pua

NFCorp hiding assets in Singapore, claims Tony Pua

UPDATED @ 02:26:38 PM 09-03-2012

By Yow Hong Chieh

March 09, 2012
Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Tony Pua alleged today that National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) directors have begun disposing of their assets in Singapore and called on police to freeze the company’s overseas assets.

The DAP publicity chief pointed out that one NFCorp director, Wan Shahinur Izran Mohamad Salleh, recently sold a food and beverage company, allegedly set up in the island republic using funds meant for the cattle-rearing firm.

Pua wants the police to freeze NFCorp’s overseas assets. — File pic

The company, Straits Beverages Pte Ltd, which was incorporated in March 2010 with Izran as the sole shareholder, was sold to a British Virgin Islands company, Gold Index International Ltd, after he stepped down as director on December 2, 2011.

Izran is the son of federal minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil and NFCorp chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail. Their two other children are also directors in NFCorp.

According to Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), two Singaporeans, Alphonsus Wee and Amir Mulyani Mohamed Solay, were then appointed as Straits Beverages directors.

“This proves that the NFCorp director is either disposing of or hiding his assets in Singapore...,” Pua told reporters at the DAP headquarters here.

“We call upon the police to not only investigate the disposal of assets in Singapore but also discover how much of NFCorp loan funds have been transferred to Straits Beverages before it was ‘sold’ to other parties for sums unknown.”

He further alleged that Izran’s actions amounted to money-laundering, saying the police must freeze NFCorp directors’ assets abroad pending an investigation to ensure public funds can be recovered.

NFCorp hit the national headlines after it made it into the Auditor-General’s Report last year for missing production targets.

The publicly-funded company has been repeatedly accused by the opposition of using its RM250 million soft loan from the government for purposes unrelated to cattle farming.

These include the purchase of multi-million ringgit luxury condominium units in Bangsar and Singapore as well as land in Putrajaya.

Questions have also been raised about NFCorp’s Singaporean operations — which allegedly include a supermarket — that Salleh has said were necessary as the local market could not support the company’s beef production.

PKR and the DAP, however, have said that the company’s overseas venture makes no sense in light of its federal mandate to fulfil up to 40 per cent of Malaysia’s demand for beef by 2015.

Police recommended last month that the Attorney-General charge NFCorp’s directors for criminal breach of trust, but the A-G has asked the police to conduct further investigations.