Register Of Assets Can End Suspicious Land Deals

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In October last year, a parcel of land measuring more than 13,000 square metres was put up for a 30-year lease. When tenders closed last month, there were three bids.
A decision on the award will be made after the tender submissions have been evaluated and will be published later.
If you thought that the Kuala Lumpur City Hall or the Selangor government had changed their ways of selling or alienating land overnight, you were wrong.
This only happens across the Causeway, where the Singapore Land Authority has implemented a system that optimises land use to benefit the public by periodically auctioning parcels of land.
ADSIn the Klang Valley, prime land is not sold to the highest bidder but to businesspersons and developers, some of whom pull the right cables or to political cronies - to whom the establishment owes one favour or another.
It has been an opaque system in which businesses and enterprises benefit at the expense of the community.
The archives provide anecdotal evidence of such sales, and the sale of land along Jalan Bunus off Jalan Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur is just one of the many transactions that were done in secret.
Malaysiakini sighted an application signed by the temple committee dated Nov 15, 2012, submitted to the Federal Territories Land Administrator under Section 14 of the National Land Code, for the land to be gazetted as a reserve land for a non-Muslim house of worship.
According to the land search document, DBKL registered their land ownership on July 19, 2010.
The same document states that DBKL transferred ownership of the land to Jakel Trading Sdn Bhd, owner and operator of Jakel Mall, located opposite the temple, on Oct 23, 2014.
The process surrounding the sale of the land by DBKL to Jakel remains unclear.
Last year, a piece of land earmarked for a police station in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur, was sold to a developer.
Former federal territories minister Khalid Abdul Samad asked: “Who decided to give the land to a developer?
“The MP and residents there didn’t know about this. All of a sudden, the reserve land has approval for development purposes,” he said.
Then, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Dr Zaliha Mustafa provided an unconvincing answer saying the sale was conducted through an open tender process.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Dr Zaliha MustafaADSWe had to take her word for it because no one knew of the sale, which was not advertised.
She said the sale would facilitate the construction of 800 affordable housing units at the developer’s expense.
But this is only part of the story and far from the truth. Seputeh MP Teresa Kok said the company planned to develop the land in two phases.
The first phase would involve building more than 1,600 serviced apartments, and the second phase would involve constructing 800 affordable homes on the remaining 2.47 acres.
Remember Taman Rimba Kiara?
In 2014, Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan (YWP), a foundation parked under the Federal Territories Ministry, entered into a joint venture with Memang Perkasa Sdn Bhd (MPSB), to develop part of a public park – Taman Rimba Kiara in Taman Tun Dr Ismail in Kuala Lumpur.
The park was divided into two parcels, with half (12 acres) transferred to YWP for development.
In 2017, the DBKL approved the construction of eight blocks of 42 to 54-storey luxury condominiums and a 350-unit affordable housing project for Bukit Kiara longhouse residents.
Residents protested but when the authorities ignored their objections, they took it to the streets.
In July 2017, DBKL issued a development order (DO) to allow YWP and MPSB’s joint development without informing TTDI residents despite objections raised.
Residents filed a lawsuit the following month seeking court orders to cancel the DO and to have DBKL adopt and gazette its city plan (which had recognised the 12-acre project site as a public park).
A series of court battles ensued, with the Federal Court cancelling DBKL’s approval to build apartment blocks on part of park land.
The court said the Kuala Lumpur mayor had wrongly and illegally exercised his discretion under the Federal Territory (Planning) Act of 1982 (FT Act) when DBKL ignored an existing master plan for Kuala Lumpur’s development (which marked the project site as a green space for public use) and approved the apartment project.
It was an expensive exercise that cost several hundred thousand ringgit, which DBKL had to fork out.
Where did the money come from? The residents of Kuala Lumpur, through their annual assessments, had to pay for legal costs because of the actions of DBKL officials.
I then wrote: “There have been a number of cases where the local authorities ignored laws and conventions and pretended these don’t exist so that a few can profit at the expense of the people.
“This decision should empower more people to take to task imperious decisions and those who ride roughshod over their duty to the residents.
"When those with power are supported by those with deep pockets, it is said that they can move mountains. But such moves must be consistent with set laws, regulations and procedures.”
Many other examples
In 2015, Melati Ehsan Holdings Bhd, in a joint venture (JV) with Selangor State Development Corp (PKNS), proposed to develop a 34-year-old sports complex into a sports-themed mixed development which entailed five 35-storey apartment blocks, two 15-storey business complexes, a performing arts centre and an integrated sporting hub.
After the Petaling Jaya City Council rejected the application for a DO, it was resubmitted, but with protests from residents, that decision stayed.
There have been several instances where state land has been surreptitiously alienated or sold to developers, and residents have acted as watchdogs to prevent any development.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that not all states have a register of assets that is open to public scrutiny.
Does anyone know how much land DBKL or the Selangor government own and how many parcels have been sold?
No information was forthcoming until the Public Accounts Committee held an inquiry on land swaps in January.
It was noted that 97 parcels of land owned by DBKL had been sold since 2011. But how were the prices determined?
Were they sold at prevailing market prices or heavily discounted to cronies and friends of politicians? What about the other states where prime land has fallen into private hands? No answers were provided.
So, any open space becomes the target of middle persons and runners for unscrupulous developers who then submit requests to buy the land.
Prices are “negotiated”, and those affected by such deals are kept in the dark until development occurs.
In the absence of a government body which oversees the sale of state land, the Madani government, which has intensely promoted the concept of good governance, should order all government institutions to maintain a register of assets, which is updated periodically.
This will end the opaqueness in transactions involving state assets. We, the citizens, will then become the government’s eyes and ears, detecting any discrepancies and reporting them accordingly.
If public listed companies can be compelled to provide such details in their annual report, why not government agencies? - Mkini
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who tries to live up to the ethos of civil rights leader John Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com

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