Rohani: Shahrizat adviser to PM, not my ministry

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 — Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim today rebuffed Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s appointment as the prime minister’s special adviser, saying that the latter was not appointed to her ministry on women, family and community development.

Rohani also said that fellow Cabinet colleague Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz was merely giving “his opinion” in saying that Shahrizat  — the former women’s minister — was appointed to “help Rohani, the new minister”.

“It’s not adviser to my ministry,” Rohani told a press conference at the sidelines of the Women’s Summit 2013 conference here.

Rohani stressed that Shahrizat’s portfolio was under the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nazri said yesterday that Shahrizat’s experience was necessary in helping Rohani - a Sarawakian politician - run a ministry that is accustomed to “the peninsula (Malaysian) way of doing things”.

English daily The Star reported yesterday that Shahrizat would likely be appointed as the prime minister’s special adviser on women’s affairs.

The appointment, which has yet to be announced, will confer Shahrizat full ministerial status and allow her to return to power, about a year after the Wanita Umno chief lost her Cabinet portfolio at the height of a national cattle-farming scandal.

Wanita DAP chief Chong Eng has questioned Shahrizat’s appointment, saying that the new role is “redundant” and appears to be an “insult” to Rohani, who is already heading the ministry on women, family and community development.

PKR vice-president N. Surendran said that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was hoping to gain favour from Umno warlords ahead of the coming party elections by reappointing Shahrizat back into his Cabinet.

He told The Malay Mail Online that the Umno president did not dare to sideline Shahrizat, an influential leader who is expected to defend her post in Wanita Umno in the election this October.

Shahrizat was previously appointed women, family and community development minister via her senatorship, but was effectively dropped from the Cabinet in April 2012 when her senatorship was not renewed following an expose that her family received a RM250 million federal loan to operate the National Feedlot Centre (NFC), a cattle-farming project.

This is the second time Shahrizat will be given a political lifeline after having won a similar reprieve in the aftermath of Election 2008, when she was defeated by newcomer Nurul Izzah Anwar in the contest for the Lembah Pantai federal seat.

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 accused of misusing 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.