Pua: Shares transfer shows NFCorp planned to keep firms separate

Pua: Shares transfer shows NFCorp planned to keep firms separate

UPDATED @ 01:49:10 PM 09-03-2012

By Yow Hong Chieh

March 09, 2012
Malaysian Insider

Pua cast doubt on the diversion of RFC’s stake in a Singaporean firm towards Shahrizat’s family members. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — The transfer of shares from firms set up using National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) funds to individual directors is proof they never intended to incorporate the companies as subsidiaries, Tony Pua claimed today.

NFCorp lawyer Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had said last week that the “so-called ‘unrelated companies’ of NFCorp where the [funds were] channelled to were always meant to be subsidiaries of NFCorp”.

The DAP publicity chief pointed out that one of NFCorp’s “unrelated companies”, Real Food Company Sdn Bhd (RFC), had invested S$450,000 (RM1.08 million) for 450,000 shares in Meatworks (Singapore) Pte Ltd in April 2010.

The shares were later transferred to its directors, Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh Ismail and his children, Wan Shahinur Izmir Mohamad Salleh, Wan Shahinur Izran Mohamad Salleh and Wan Izzana Fatimah Zabedah.

Mohamad Salleh, the husband of federal minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil, is the chairman of NFCorp, where Izmir, Izran and Izzana are also directors.

Pua said that, according to Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), the transfer of 90,000 shares to each of the directors occurred on July 20, 2010, slashing RFC’s stake to only 90,000 shares.

“The above transfer of shares to family members of... Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil indicates very clearly that there was obviously no intent to ‘rationalise the structure of NFCorp’ by making these ‘unrelated companies’ subsidiaries of NFCorp.

“Had that been the original intent, what is the purpose of transferring shares of Meatworks (Singapore), which is invested presumably with money from the RM250 million government loan to the respective individuals?” he told reporters at DAP headquarters here.

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 investigation