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Rafizi rebuts deputy minister’s denial on grant given to company favoured by Najib

Putrajaya didesak jelaskan mana RM274 juta hasil cukai bahan api, kata Rafizi

An opposition lawmaker has rebutted Putrajaya's denial that no grants were issued to a private company allegedly favoured by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, saying that the list issued by a deputy minister was for a different time period.

Rafizi Ramli said the list where which Deputy Science, Technology and Innovations Minister Datuk Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah read from, when he denied that RM100 million was given to NSE Resources Corporation Sdn Bhd, was a list of grant recipients from the Ninth Malaysia Plan, ‎which was from 2006 to 2010.

‎"This means the total 4,556 R&D grant recipients in the list given by the deputy minister was from between 2006 and 2010, whereas the information which I exposed was a grant approved by the ministry on January 21 this year.

"Of course the approval of the RM100 million grant to NSE Resources were not in the list as it was approved early this year," Rafizi (pic, top left) said in a statement today.

Moreover, the PKR Pandan MP said the firm admitted on its website at that it had received two grants from the ministry.

In ripping Abu Bakar's denial apart, Rafizi said he was unsure if the denials were Putrajaya's way of keeping a lid on the issue.

"I am not sure whether the deputy minister really ‎missed this or whether he was in a hurry to close the matter by coming up with another list of recipients to confuse the public.

"His statement has raised a lot of questions and showed as though he had something to hide," he said.

The PKR strategist – who catapulted into the limelight following his expose of the RM250 million National Feedlot Corporation scandal that led to the eventual resignation of an Umno minister – said to date, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Datuk Ewon Ebin and Najib had yet to deny that the supporting and approval letters purportedly from the duo were false.

Rafizi challenged both leaders to make a statutory declaration that the supporting and approval letters for NSE Resources allegedly signed by the two leaders were fakes.

"Their refusal to do so will prove that all the documents that I have with me were legitimate," he added.

For the past few days, Rafizi questioned Najib's alleged interference in the approval of a RM100 million research and development grant to a company for a commercial project, which had been refused financing by banks.

He said Putrajaya had approved the grant application by NSE Resources through a letter signed by Ewon on January 21 for the development of a gasified boiler plant.

The approval letter from the ministry apparently referred to a letter from Najib's office dated November 21 last year, after NSE Resources wrote to the prime minister on November 15.

Rafizi also alleged the company had managed to secure another RM50 million grant from Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water.

But Putrajaya denied Rafizi's claims yesterday, with Abu Bakar revealing a list of more than 4,000 grant recipients by his ministry which did not include NSE Resources.

Abu Bakar then questioned the authenticity of the letters produced by Rafizi, besides denying opposition lawmaker's allegations.

"The ministry's records do not show any single private firm which was awarded more than RM3 million, out of the total RM2.9 billion allocated under the Ninth Malaysia Plan," he was quoted as saying by news portal Malaysiakini. – April 24, 2014.