KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — Amid continued debate into the Ijok land controversy, three Selangor Pakatan Harapan (PH) representatives asserted today that the state government did not sell off its land as alleged by the Barisan Nasional (BN).

The trio — PKR’s Subang MP R. Sivarasa and Parti Amanah Negara’s Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad and former Kuala Selangor MP Dzulkefly Ahmad — told the BN’s strategic communications deputy director Datuk Eric See-To that the land that was sold for RM1.18 billion was land that originally belonged to settlers, but was privatised by the previous government when his coalition held power.

“The fact of the matter is that the land that was sold for RM 1.18 was NOT Selangor government land but was PRIVATE land. His question is a false question,” the three said in a joint statement.

They suggested that See-To had “forgotten” that it was the BN state administration that had “taken back the land from the settlers in 1998 in return for empty promises”.

They asserted that it was the PKR-led Selangor government that had in 2016 “remedied a massive injustice inflicted on the settlers” by the previous BN administration and successfully recovered 1000 acres of public land known then as Alam Perdana that that the BN had allegedly given away in 1998.

“The role of the Selangor government when granting consent to the sale was to impose conditions in order to resolve the legal predicament of the settlers in one global settlement.

“The land owners were to settle all the outstanding costs to banks on their land and the sale proceeds would be used to pay the compensation owed to the settlers,” Sivarasa, Khalid and Dzulkefly said.

The trio also insisted that specific payments made by the subsequent landowners from the sale to their banks and their creditors were their private commercial arrangements and had nothing to do with the state government nor the settlers.

“After 20 years of waiting, the settlers have been paid in full and will receive keys for their new home by the end of next year.

“We thank Eric and his Umno bosses who are suddenly showing a lot of concern after leaving the settlers in the lurch for two decades,” they said.