Defence ministry official raises two questionable land plot swaps during BN rule

PUTRAJAYA, Feb 21 — Alleging political meddling during Barisan Nasional (BN) rule, Defence Ministry special officer Mohd Nasaie Ismail today filed an official complaint with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over the exchange of two plots of land where the military have set up bases.

He said the development of the two military camps, which are in Paloh, Johor and Hutan Melintang, Perak, were not part of the 11th Malaysia Plan and had caused huge losses to the government.

“These two camps were part of a land swap with Kinrara camp in Selangor, and Rasah camp in Negri Sembilan.

“It was found that there were excessive political involvement, which had led to the development of the projects,” he told reporters outside the MACC headquarters here.

According to Mohd Nasaie, the land swaps had taken place before the 14th general election last May, when BN was government.

He said he will file more reports on the same matter with the MACC.

Mohd Nasaie also submitted to the MACC a report by the Governance, Procurement and Finance Investigating Committee led by former Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, on the land swap deals.

“From time to time, we will hand over the full report to MACC, which had been submitted to the Cabinet last Wednesday.

“We have yet to receive orders from the government to submit the full report to MACC for the next course of action,” he said, in reference to the remaining 14 out of 16 deals involving 2,932 acres of land belonging to the ministry, which was mentioned in the report investigated by the committee.

Last Tuesday, Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu estimated the cost of the projects at RM4.88 billion.

Mohd Nasaie said the ministers then in charge of the alleged land swap deals were former defence minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his successor Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, adding that the process had taken a long time and had started in 2017.

“Military personnel were moved to the camps in 2018 before the general election, but for the base in Paloh, there were certain requirements needed to be fulfilled, therefore attempts to move voters into the constituency had failed.

“However, in the Hutan Melintang base, a significant number of voters were moved into the camp.

“The directive for the camp was found to be politically motivated to transfer the number of voters before the general election,” said Nasaie.

In early April last year, former minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz publicly alleged that land belonging to the Armed Forces had been swapped by a company supposedly under the control of three key individuals.

Shortly thereafter the ministry responded with a statement, denying this was the case and saying various measures were used for the development projects, which include privatisation through land-swapping deals.