KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 ― Taman Desa residents said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has lost an official complaint that they had filed against the sale of a playground’s land.
M. Gunasekar, one of the 31 residents of Taman Desa's low-rise Armada Villa who signed off on the complaint, said the written complaint was submitted on November 16, 2017 to MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad's office.
Malay Mail sighted the first page of the complaint that was hand-delivered to the MACC, with the date of November 16, 2017 stamped in acknowledgment by the chief commissioner's office on the day it received the document.
“The Complaint was signed by 31 residents affected by a proposed project to build a 52-Storey High Rise Condominium to be built on a plot of land designated as a Playground,” Gunasekar told Malay Mail in a written statement yesterday.
He said the affected Taman Desa residents on November 18, 2017 then held a press conference on the proposed condominium development, noting that a search at the land office had showed that the land title carried the condition of use as “library and park” and that the land was transferred by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to a private developer who had then charged the title to a bank.
Over a month later into the official complaint, Gunasekar said that it had become untraceable.
“On 22 December 2017, a follow up visit to MACC revealed that the MACC was unable to trace the Complaint Document.
“Numerous calls was made to MACC to find out the status of the complaint but whoever that received the call could not provide any updates about it,” he said.
Gunasekar said that an official email together with the complainant's contact details was then sent on December 23, 2017 to the MACC to enable the latter to trace the complaint document, adding that this was done at the request of the MACC assistant superintendent Hung Heng Hong who was attending to the Taman Desa residents' query.
“On 18 January 2018, an email was received from Mr Hung informing that the MACC is unable to trace the Complaint Documents and asked for another set to be sent together with contact details,” he said.
Malay Mail also sighted yesterday's email where the MACC officer had notified that the documents sent by the Armada Villa residents could not be traced and apologised for the inconvenience caused, as well as requested for the complaint documents to be resent.
The Protect Taman Desa coalition and Armada Villa residents had previously questioned the sale of the land used for a playground to a developer for a condominium project, pointing out that Armada Villa brochures had advertised the land to be a “public park” and that the plans in the Armada Villa sales and purchase agreements had earmarked it as a "park and library".
Armada Villa is situated in the Taman Danau Desa area, which is also considered part of the larger Taman Desa neighbourhood.
The upcoming project on the land adjacent to Armada Villa is one of 13 projects highlighted by Protect Taman Desa, which has been voicing concern over alleged over-development in the mature neighbourhood of around 40 years old.
