Umno vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not answer businessperson Deepak Jaikishan’s ( below ) allegations against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his family as promised.

Instead, he spent much of his 20-minute winding-up speech at the Umno general assembly singing praises about Najib’s foreign relations efforts, before moving on to criticise the opposition parties.

Zahid, who is also defence minister, told Malaysiakini yesterday that he would respond to the issue in his winding-up speech, but it was not mentioned at all.

Hishammuddin Hussein hari raya open house Previously, another Umno vice-president, Hishammuddin Hussein ( right ), had previously dismissed the allegations as an attempt to sidetrack the general assembly, along with a separate allegation by former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan.

He did not answer the allegations, other than to say that he had addressed the issue in the Dewan Rakyat before.

Deepak had previously claimed that he paid Najib’s family an undisclosed sum for the premier’s intervention to allow him to come in as a third party to a Defence Ministry project.

NONE Najib was the defence minister at the time of the deal in 2007.

Deepak ( left ) said he was facilitating the project for a Selangor Umno politician who lacked the credit-worthiness to take on the project in exchange for a piece of prime government-owned land.

However, the land promise did not follow through and Deepak complained that there was no action from Najib to resolve the matter although he was said to be aware of the dispute.

Separately, Musa had accused Hishammuddin, as home minister, of meddling with the police force.