THE two land swap deals involving the Defence Ministry are being investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said Mohamad Sabu.

The minister said ministry officers are assisting MACC in the investigations into the two deals.

Mohamad said ministry will lodge more reports if the deals have elements of criminality.

“If there are more cases, we will report to the MACC,” Mohamad said to the media in the Parliament lobby today.

Earlier, Mohamad had tabled former auditor-general Ambrin Buang’s special audit on land swap projects involving the ministry in the Dewan Negara.

In February, the ministry had urged MACC to investigate two land swap projects in Hutan Melintang (Perak) and Camp Paloh in Johor.

According to the executive summary, the two projects had elements of political interference.

“Checks with the Election Commission (EC) confirmed the committee’s findings that the army camps in Bera, Segamat, Paloh and Hutan Melintang were built for political purposes and to move army voters before the 14^th general election (GE14).

“The presence of EC at several camps proved that the construction of these camps was a strategy to win GE14 as these were not strategic areas for the ministry.

“In the case of the camp in Paloh, there was a memorandum from former defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s political secretary, urging Putrajaya to prioritise the project for the Sembrong parliament constituency.

“This resulted in the issuance of a letter of authorisation to the developer to purchase the land and build it before the contract was signed,” said the executive summary.

The report, which covered 16 land swap projects, said that the government had lost around RM500 million as a result of political interference by the Barisan Nasional government, poor administration and lopsided contracts. – May 9, 2019