THE high-level “Budiman committee” is no longer handling Bandar Malaysia and the Tun Razak Exchange developments in the fallout over an aborted deal, with Treasury secretary-general Irwan Serigar Abdullah now managing both projects, sources said.

The Malaysian Insight has learnt that Finance Minister Najib Razak endorsed the decision to stop the committee’s work while an internal review is being done on “potential conflicts of interest” in both land developments.

The Budiman committee set up in April 2016 comprised Second Finance Minister Johari Ghani and 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) president Arul Kanda Kandasamy, who was removed from the boards of both Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd and TRX City Sdn Bhd yesterday.

“The Budiman committee’s role in TRX and Bandar Malaysia has ceased while an internal review is ongoing on potential conflicts of interest in the TRX and Bandar Malaysia deals,” a source told The Malaysian Insight.

The Budiman committee had worked on transferring the assets of the scandal-hit 1MDB to two companies owned by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

The Singapore Straits Times reported last January that these valuable assets were two massive plots of land in Kuala Lumpur and one on Penang island.

The three plots of land were transferred to Piramid Pertama and Aroma Teraju, according to government officials and lawyers involved in 1MDB’s debt workout, the Singapore daily said.

In an interview with The Straits Times, Johari noted that proceeds from the sale of 1MDB’s power generation business had helped settle debts owed to Malaysian banks.

“Our next move is to kick-start the property development of Bandar Malaysia and TRX,” he said, referring to 1MDB’s two major real estate projects on the fringes of Kuala Lumpur.

But Putrajaya aborted the Bandar Malaysia deal last week, saying the share sale agreement with the IWH-CREC Sdn Bhd joint-venture had lapsed despite 12 extensions for payment.

Iskandar Waterfront City and China Railway Engineering Corporation had signed a RM7.42 billion deal to buy 60% of the company owning the Bandar Malaysia project over 197ha of land on the edge of Kuala Lumpur. It will also house the Singapore-KL high-speed rail terminus.

The Singapore daily reported today that Chinese real estate giant Dalian Wanda is in the lead to take over the Bandar Malaysia project with a deal to be signed later this week.

Nearby Bandar Malaysia is the 28ha Tun Razak Exchange, or TRX, that is slated to be the capital’s financial hub. Another plot of real estate to be transferred out of 1MDB is a 94.7ha in Penang’s Air Itam district. – May 9, 2017.