RM250 million times two pocket money to waste

NFC: What a bull

October 31, 2011 by drrafick

I have read the online news that quoted Noh Omar on the issue surrounding the NFC. The minister was saying among others that that the project is a success and there is nothing wrong with Minister children participating in the project. To show the strong background of the personality involved he even highlighted the glowing academic CV of Mohamad Salleh, the Executive Chairman.

I agree that there is nothing wrong by giving the youngsters a chance to be involved in a cattle business. However I disagree that we can call it a success. By my assessment it is a total failure because it did not reduce our national dependency of meat imports. I would expect that after RM200 mill and after 5 years, there would be significant reduction of imports. Instead it continues to import cattle, causing the country to lose on foreign exchange and slaughter them locally.

The way I see it is better to slaughter them in Australia and bring in the meat as that would be cheaper and logistically easier. The Gemas project did not bring value add to the nation. It only added 3 more youngsters into the cattle business. It did not reduce the nation meat import. It only gave RM200 mill to several kids to experiment.

The issue is not about Shahrizat or her family. The issue is about the government. The government has wasted RM200 mill of direct funds at a subsidized cost. The money could have been used to develop small farmers livestock program instead of giving to one person. I would have given the money to 20,000 experienced livestock farmer with animals worth RM10, 000 (or 1 bull and 3 heifers). Within 5 years each farmer would have between 13 to 15 animals and the 20,000 farmers would have produced 300,000 animals. That is something that we can be proud off.

The government must be made accountable. How can our Minister be proud of with spending RM200 mill and exposing 3 new graduates in cattle business and slaughtering about 5000 odd cattle as a measure of success? If I am the Minister I would be ashamed to give such a reply in Parliament because the ministry has failed. There is a Malay proverb that says, “menegakkan benang yang basah” and that exactly what Noh did today. To me this is embarrassing.