Selangor overpaid Talam at least RM28m for swamp land, says MCA
UPDATED @ 03:54:05 PM 10-07-2012
KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The MCA’s Datuk Chua Tee Yong today claimed that the Selangor government had overpaid Talam Corp at least RM28.3 million for four plots of mostly swamp land.
He was referring to 134.34 acres at Danau Putra, which he said the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government had agreed to buy at a price of RM87.7 million (RM15 per square feet) on March 12, 2010.
“Why is the PR Selangor government buying land which is 80 per cent submerged underwater and requires more than RM50 million to fill up before they can commence development?” asked Chua (picture), the MCA Young Professionals Bureau chairman, basing the landfill cost on a “current estimate” and valuation reports which he said are available on the Bursa website.
The Labis MP said one of the four plots of the land, which was bought at RM43.3 million, was auctioned off at RM15 million six months into the purchase.
Chua said Selangor had “paid a higher price of RM28 million”, based on the difference in the purchase price and auction price of this plot, which he claims is completely swamp land.
He asked whether Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s administration had overpaid Talam RM57 million for the four plots of land, based on the decreased value of the auctioned land.
He said he was looking at “the most recent transaction” of the 66.35 acres of auctioned land (RM5.20 per square feet) to “make an assumption” of the value of the other three plots.
Chua showed reporters calculations based on the “assumption” that the three plots would also now be valued at RM5.20 per square feet, showing that they could be worth RM29million less than the purchase price of RM44.4million.
“There are so many questions on the Talam deal. We don’t have all the answers and we need some clarifications from the Selangor government to avoid all problems, all the guessing on what has happened,” said Chua.
“Why is none of the DAP Selangor exco members stepping up? Why are we not getting any response from them?” he said, when asked about the DAP’s Tony Pua’s claim that Selangor was actually collecting debt from Talam, and not bailing it out.
Chua said today’s disclosure of the “questionable purchase” was part of “the RM676 million purchase of assets from Talam by the Selangor PR government”.
He had last week alleged that Selangor had used RM1 billion in public funds to bail out Talam, but then appeared to scale back his claims to an overpayment of RM42 million in a land purchase.
Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim has threatened to sue Chua, and Trinity Corporation (the new name for Talam) has also issued a full rebuttal of Chua’s RM1 billion claim.
