PUTRAJAYA, Aug 19 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak shrugged off talk today of Wanita Umno chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s likely re-entry into his Cabinet, saying no such announcement has been made as yet.
But the prime minister, who was asked to confirm the news during a Hari Raya function this afternoon, did not deny the possibility.
“No, no there is no announcement or anything yet,” Najib (picture) told reporters, before requesting that the matter be laid to rest.
Earlier this afternoon, English daily The Star reported that Shahrizat will likely be appointed the prime minister’s special adviser on women affairs.
The yet-to-be announced appointment will also confer Shahrizat with full ministerial status and powers, allowing her the avenue to return to the corridors of power.
Shahrizat had been appointed women, family and community development minister via her senatorship despite losing her Lembah Pantai seat in the March 2008 general election.
But she was effectively removed from Cabinet in April 2012 after her term was not renewed during the height of the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal involving her and her family members.
The NFC scandal hit media headlines two years ago when the Auditor-General’s 2010 Report highlighted the failure of the NFC project in achieving its target of breeding 8,000 head of cattle in Gemas, Negri Sembilan, in 2010, besides noting National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFCorp) management failures.
Shahrizat’s husband Datuk Seri Dr Mohamed Salleh Ismail who chairs the NFCorp, the firm that runs the NFC, and the couple’s children were later alleged to have misused the government allocation of RM250 million for the project.
On March 12 last year, Mohamad Salleh pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust involving some RM49.7 million with regards to the purchase of two condominium units and two other charges under the Companies Act.
Shahrizat had also filed a RM100 million defamation suit against PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli and Wanita PKR chief Zuraida Kamaruddin, two opposition lawmakers who were actively pushing for the former minister’s resignation over the scandal.
Rafizi was pushed into the limelight after exposing NFCorp’s purchases of luxury condominium units allegedly through the RM250 million federal government loan that was meant for the national cattle-farming project.
The trial of Shahrizat’s defamation suit against Rafizi revealed last March that NFCorp had purchased a RM534,622 Mercedes-Benz in 2009 as a company car that was parked in her house.
In the trial, Shahrizat has also defended NFCorp’s purchase of three luxury condominium units in the Orchard Scotts Residences and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore worth RM42 million, saying that the buy was part of the company’s investment portfolio, according to her husband.
The embattled leader will be defending her post in Wanita Umno in the coming party polls and is expected to face a challenge from Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, a former minister.
