PUTRAJAYA has revived the Bandar Malaysia project with the original contractor getting back the job, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today. 

The decision to reinstate IWH-CREC Sdn Bhd, said the premier, was made after due deliberation by the cabinet on April 17.

“We were under the impression that the project was given entirely to a Chinese company and we heard that suddenly, the Chinese company had to withdraw because of certain decisions by the government then.

“They then offered it to another Chinese company, (Dalian) Wanda, which had the money but at that time, the Chinese government wasn’t allowing any more money to be invested outside the country and, as a result, neither Wanda nor the first company did anything,” he said in announcing the project’s revival at a press conference today. 

Dr Mahathir said the government had also realised that IWH-CREC was actually a Malaysian company, as a majority of its shareholders are Malaysians. 

IWH-CREC is a 60:40 joint venture between China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) and Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd (IWH), of which the Johor government owns 40%.

Thusly, he said the majority stake was actually held by the government.

Plans for a project to be developed at the old Sg Besi airbase will also be redrawn. 

This will include the construction of 10,000 affordable housing units and a park, and will involve the participation of Bumiputera contractors and increased priority local content in their construction.

“The government welcomes the commitment by IWH-CREC to make an advance payment of RM500 million in addition to the original deposit sum of RM741 million to be paid within 60 days from the date that the government officially reinstates the project,” he told the press conference.

The Bandar Malaysia project was also supposed to accommodate the terminus for the proposed high-speed rail (HSR) project linking Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

On this, Dr Mahathir said the development would be designed in a way that there exists space for the terminus if the HSR project goes ahead in the future.

The consortium lost the project in May 2017 after Putrajaya claimed it failed to meet payment obligations. The consortium has maintained that it had honoured all 12 payment obligations.

“The project is expected to generate tremendous impact on urban development for Malaysia, drawing foreign direct investments and generating an expected gross development value (GDV) of RM140 billion.

“It will draw major international financial institutions, multinational corporations (MNCs) and Fortune 500 Companies to locate their regional headquarters in Bandar Malaysia. In addition, tech giants, such as Alibaba and Huawei, have also manifested interest to establish their ICT centres (here),” Dr Mahathir said.

Meanwhile on Felda, Dr Mahathir said the government will amalgamate smallholders’ holdings into one big plantation.

He said this would also solve the problem of settlers taking fresh fruit bunches belonging to Felda and selling it to third party mills for profit.

He added that notices would also be served to these mills to stop them from receiving and processing fresh fruit bunches from settlers.

The government will also encourage the practice of crop rotation to enable settlers to diversify beyond just palm. – April 19, 2019.