THE Federal Territories Ministry’s investigation into shady Kuala Lumpur City Hall land sales is confined to commercial aspects of any such deals, said its minister, Khalid Abdul Samad.

He said any concerns touching on money laundering and corruption fell into the ambit of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigation and not the ministry’s.

“We cannot investigate to see if officers have been offered money. We only can check if payments were made in accordance with the land’s market value,” he said in Kuala Lumpur today.

The Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) had recently urged Khalid to explain in Parliament how the shady deals took place and what preventive measures he intended to implement to curb such issues.

The minister said C4 must understand that the MACC’s investigation was separate from the ministry’s.

“From the aspect of money laundering and corruption, the investigation was carried out by the MACC, so the C4 should request the reports from the MACC.

“The ministry carried out an investigation only to ensure the council had sold the land at reasonable prices,” he said.

He said the ministry could request revisions of prices to be refunded through corporate social responsibility projects if the prices were found to vary from market value.

“To get around this in the future, the ministry will practice open tenders instead of direct negotiations, as practiced by the former government administration.”

The Shah Alam MP also said the MACC had given the ministry the green light to carry on with any ongoing sales if its investigations did not affect the MACC’s probe.

“We have been allowed to go ahead with the deals if we conclude that the sales can be continued,” he added. – October 21, 2018.