COMMENT | Although Selangor Menteri Besar Mohamed Azmin Ali has maintained an elegant silence over the allegations on the RM1.18 billion Ijok land scandal raised by BN Strategic Communications (BNSC) director Abdul Rahman Dahlan a week ago, various aides to the MB have responded.

These include Azmin's strategic communications director Yin Shao Loong, the MB's political secretary Shuhaimi Shafiei and the Parliament Coordinator for Kuala Selangor, Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad from Amanah.

However, their answers make little sense and merely seem to be weak attempts at a cover-up.

For example, Shao Loong (photo below) calls the two private companies as crony companies which have failed to deliver. However, he then goes on to defend that the Selangor government had to give back the land to these two failed crony companies.

Similarly, Shuhaimi also called the two companies "BN cronies" but said the decision for the state government to give up the Federal Court case and settle with the companies is a win-win situation for all.

So, if both Shao Loong and Shuhaimi said they are BN cronies dating to the Dr Mahathir (Mohamad)-era of the year 1998-2000, why then did the Selangor government bail-out the "BN cronies" that had failed, and now allow them to win - and in fact, "win" much more than the settlers?

More shocking is the statement from Amanah's Dzulkefly, who detailed out that the RM1.18 billion was divided as follows - compensation to the 981 settler families (RM300 million), bank payments and creditors (RM670 million) and retained by the two companies (RM210 million).

Dzulkefly's figures showed that BNSC's calculations of RM421 million given to the settlers were too generous, since only RM300 million out of the RM1.18 billion went to the settlers, while the remaining RM880 million went to the two "crony companies" to settle their outstanding bank loans, creditors and for them retain a bonus of RM210 million for themselves.

This means that out of the effective price of RM12.34 per square feet (psf) paid for the settlers' land by the public company to the two "crony" companies, of which Mahathir loyalist Khairuddin Abu Hassan was once the executive director, the settlers themselves were only paid a price of RM3.12psf for their land, while the two companies pocketed the rest...