Still no takers to develop Bandar Malaysia, says Pua

KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 — No firms have responded to the government’s long-standing tender request for the development of Bandar Malaysia land linked to 1MDB, said DAP’s Tony Pua.

“When we asked the (Finance) ministry officials, the developers who came forward were zero,” he told the Dewan Rakyat when debating the royal address today.

The previous Barisan Nasional government had claimed it wanted a Fortune 500 company to be the master developer of the multi-billion ringgit Bandar Malaysia project to be built on land previously alienated to 1MDB.

The Finance Ministry first called for tender proposals in June last year.

Among the criteria listed for the companies applying include being an “affiliate of a Fortune 500 company to ensure financial strength”, a company which has generated RM50 billion revenue in the last three years and “has experience in international quality real estate development projects”.

The Iskandar Waterfront Holdings-China Railway Engineering Corp IWC-CREC consortium was previously awarded the contract to develop Bandar Malaysia, but the deal fell through after it did not make the payment deadline for the RM7.41 billion deal.

The yet-to-be-built Bandar Malaysia is located on nearly 500 acres of land in Sungei Besi previously occupied by a Royal Malaysian Air Force airbase, which Putrajaya transferred to 1MDB.

The land was later returned to the government as part of the state investment firm’s “debt rationalisation”.