'Dubious' land deal, project discovered on Malaysian Rubber Board’s Sungai Buloh land

PUTRAJAYA (Jan 3): A huge tract of Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB) land was allegedly sold at far below market value while an over RM1 billion project which began construction in 2012 has hardly seen any progress although RM70 million has been paid to the Project Delivery Partner (PDP).

This was discovered recently by newly-appointed MRB chairman Sankara Narayanan.

The 2,800-acre land owned by MRB is located in Sungai Buloh, Selangor. It is also part of the tract designated for the proposed Kwasa Damansara transit-oriented development (TOD).

“The then MRB was instructed by the former government in 2010, which had secured Cabinet approval, to sell the land to Aset Tanah Nasional Bhd (ATNB) for RM1.5 billion. ATNB is one of the Government Investment Companies of the Ministry of Finance.

“However, it has come to the knowledge of MRB that the said 2,800 acres of land was subsequently bought by Kwasa Land, a unit of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for a sale consideration of RM2.28 billion,” said Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok at a media conference today with Sankara.

Sankara noted that the original valuation for the land was far below the market price in 2010, but the board couldn’t challenge the valuation as the decision was approved by the Cabinet. Kok said MRB had therefore been short-changed by about RM800 million based on the price difference.

“The board therefore contends that it is lawfully entitled to the RM800 million. The sum is still unaccounted for, to date,” she said, adding that the Primary Industries Ministry and MRB have reported the dubious land deal to the National Audit Department. However, Kok and Sankara did not reveal the parties or persons involved in the land deal as the case is still under investigation.

The 2,800-acre plot was part of a 3,385-acre land owned by MRB. After the sale of the tract, the board planned to utilise the RM1.5 billion obtained from the land sale to develop five research facilities on the remaining 585 acres.

The five facilities included a new lab, an office tower, a discovery centre (museum), sports facility and a research complex for transfer of technology to be called Sedec.

According to Sankara, MRB had appointed KLIA Consortium (set up by KLIA Associates Sdn Bhd and KLIA Consultancy Services Sdn Bhd), as the PDP for the contract worth RM1.1 billion. However, the PDP contract was terminated by MRB in February 2018 without any explanation.

The MRB later led by Sankara discovered several dubious transactions related to the project made by former officers of the board which caused a loss of RM70 million during the construction period.

MRB and the ministry have lodged a report to Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in November 2018 and expect a detailed report by the latter soon.

“The construction started around 2012 but there was no significant progress since then although RM70 million was paid. Currently, it’s still at the piling stage and construction progress is about 5%,” Sankara told the media, adding that MRB will take disciplinary action against the officers involved.

Sankara said the construction has now been put on hold as MRB finds the development  not relevant to its  needs.

Meanwhile, pursuant to Kok’s call for an overall audit of all  land deals and development projects on MRB’s lands, the board has declared an immediate moratorium on all future developments of  MRB-owned lands.