KUALA SELANGOR -- Auditor-General Ambrin Buang's clarification on the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project has proven that the project has not failed, said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Noh Omar.
"This is due to the National Feedlot Corporation Sdn Bhd (NFCorp) project achieving its Key Performance Index of producing more than 8,000 heads of cattle over the three-year period since 2008.
"The Auditor-General's clarification on the NFC project is the same as the lengthy explanation I gave in Parliament earlier," he said after distributing the 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) to eligible recipients in Bukit Belimbing, here, yesterday.
Noh was commenting on the National Audit Department's (NAD) clarification on Wednesday that the Auditor-General's Report 2010 did not mention words such as chaotic, "in a mess" or misappropriation on the project in Gemas, Negeri Sembilan.
Ambrin said in a statement that "these words were used by other parties and the NAD should not be held accountable".
Ambrin went on to say that in NAD's opinion, it was up to the authorities such as the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate if there were elements of misappropriation in the implementation of the project.
From an audit perspective, there were several weaknesses in the implementation of the project which caused the government to postpone it to May 2009, before the audit, pending a projection and business model done, he said.
Commenting further, Noh admitted there was a delay in the project, during the clearing of the 5,000-hectare site in Negeri Sembilan comprising 1,500 hectares to NFCorp, 500 hectares to another company and the rest of the land to the state government.
He said the opposition were clearly confused when they said the government had loaned RM250 million to the company before an agreement was signed.
"This is because there were two agreements with NFCorp, the first on Dec 6, 2007 with the Finance Ministry involving the RM250 million loan, and the second with the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry signed on March 8, 2010, when I was the minister.
"So, there was no way the loan would have been disbursed before the agreement was signed. The opposition were twisting the facts, saying the agreement was made in 2010 but didn't mention the one signed in 2007."
He said if there were any misappropriation in the project implementation, the ministry would leave it to the MACC to investigate.
"The project is not a failure. The ministry just has to reorganise it so that it is implemented in accordance with the terms of the agreement," he added.
