KUALA Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and the Federal Territories Ministry will lodge a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) this week over the development of two buildings on federal land that was meant to be a city park.

Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad said he was expecting the former federal territories minister and the city’s former mayor to be investigated.

“There are signs that there was an obvious abuse of power in DBKL and the federal territories ministry at that time,” he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Khalid did not mention names, but the former federal territories minister is Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who already faces two counts of receiving bribes in exchange for approving a development at Jalan Semarak in 2013.

Khalid added that an internal probe on the matter had been conducted previously but no action was taken against officers involved.

The land at Medan Imbi, owned by the Kuala Lumpur Land and Mines Office (PTG), was to have been a city park but is now the site of two buildings used by a private company.

The buildings are office towers which Khalid said resembled a “six-star hotel” and included a durian kiosk at street level.

The durian kiosk operator is currently paying RM16,000 in rental to the building owner, whom Khalid said he will not name for the time being.

The two plots of land sized 0.13 ha are estimated to be worth RM16 million to RM 22 million. The building began operations in February last year.

Khalid said there had been “hidden hands” that issued the development order for the buildings in 2016.

The private company using the buildings was supposed to have vacated the lots on January 10, he also said.

As the company had defied the eviction notice, the ministry and DBKL are now giving the company two weeks to explain and provide a solution.

Khalid said one options was for the company to apply to the land owner to buy the lands at market rate and to pay all the premium, the cost of development approval and the compound that will be imposed.

The land was formerly a park which DBKL in 2016 had announced would be upgraded to include an elevated walkway, seating areas and a playground.

But a year later in March 2017, federal territory MPs were up in arms that concrete structures for buildings had appeared instead of a new park as promised.

Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun then said city residents were shocked that plans for the park had not materialised. – January 16, 2019.