NATIONAL Feedlot Corporation (NFC) still owes the government more than RM248 million from the RM250 million soft loan it received, the Finance Ministry said.

In a written parliamentary reply to Sim Tze Tzin (PKR-Bayan Baru), the ministry said the feedlot has yet to pay a total of RM248,193,737.81 as of January 31 this year.

“NFC paid a sum of RM34.98 million in 2012 and 2013. The total amount seized from NFC and related companies under the Accountant-General’s Department of Malaysia is RM46,934,703.17,” it said in a reply dated March 7.

The ministry added that on February 22, 2017, the Tampin magistrates’ court had issued a writ of possession to order NFC to vacate its premises starting March 1 last year.

Sim had asked the ministry how much NFC had paid the government as of December 2017 and whether the government had seized NFC’s assets like condominiums and luxury cars.

Last month, Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli and former Public Bank clerk Johari Mohamad were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months’ jail by the Shah Alam Sessions Court for revealing bank documents related to the NFC accounts leak.

No one has been found guilty for the failures of the project.

The feedlot promised to breed 8,000 head of cattle by 2010, but the RM74 million centre in Gemas had only bred 3,289, or 41% of the target, the auditor-general’s report said.

The project was supposed to enhance the country’s food security and reduce the need for beef imports.

The feedlot was run by NFC, which was headed by Mohamed Salleh Ismail, the husband of Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

The company received an RM250 million soft loan from the government during the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration.

In November 2016, Rafizi lost a defamation suit and was ordered to pay Salleh and NFC RM200,000 in damages for claiming that a bank loan taken by the company was used to purchase a condominium. – March 8, 2018.