COMMENT | Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan and his sidekick Eric See-To are wrong about the Ijok land settlement.

Former Selangor menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim is also wrong. Their attempts to politicise and pervert the facts of the case stem from their pursuit of a political agenda to take back Selangor for themselves.

The handing over of RM180,000 compensation and houses now worth around RM500,000 to each one of over 980 settlers and their heirs after an 18-year struggle was a good deed facilitated by the present Selangor state government under the leadership of Menteri Besar Azmin Ali.

BN has tried to tarnish this achievement, and as usual, Khalid has attempted to cast himself in a more favourable light and raise the suggestion of scandal.

There was a land scandal in Ijok, but this occurred when Selangor was administered by Umno under Abu Hassan Omar and Mohamed Khir Toyo, two of the three political have-beens Umno recently revivified in its attempt to take back the state. Settlers were promised houses and compensation for their land and it was never fulfilled until this month by Azmin.

You’ve heard the wrong side, now hear the right side.

The land

Rahman Dahlan is very confused about the amount of land in question. He thinks it is only 2,200 acres. It actually totals 3,200 acres.

It is helpful to think of the land in terms of two parcels of three “Alams”, of Alam Perdana on the one hand, and Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama on the other.

Alam Perdana is about 1,000 acres. Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama together make up 2,200 acres. The latter is what Rahman is asking questions about.

He thinks that the state “gave back” this 2,200 acres to the landowners after winning rights to it in court. He also thinks the state paid these landowners RM1.18 billion on top of this. He is wrong. Completely wrong.

The truth is that the Selangor government under Khalid took out land acquisition proceedings on the 1,000 acres of Alam Perdana land in 2010, using the Land Acquisition Act 1960.

It was blocked by a court stay order from doing the same on the 2,200 acres of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama, which remained private land. This private land is the subject of the RM1.18 billion deal. There is no issue of the state “handing back” the Alam Perdana land it won to the developers. All questions raised on this assumption are invalidated.

As has been reported, the Selangor government won the court case over the 1,000 acres of Alam Perdana. However, it also lost a court case to Maybank, which sued Selangor for compensation for a mortgage held on the land. This compensation would amount to RM260 million. There was also a legal claim of as much as RM600 million by the landowner for compensation for existing infrastructure.

This meant that Selangor would have to pay additional compensation of around RM860 million if it acquired Alam Perdana. In fact, RM160 million had been paid during Khalid’s (photo) time as menteri besar, and he has admitted to this in his Feb 19, 2018, interview with the New Straits Times, despite denials by his mouthpiece Faekah Husin of financial risk to the state. With land acquisition, there is no free lunch.

In fact, Khalid’s various attempts to use legal powers to take over the three Alams resulted in a tangle of over 30 court cases with potential liabilities of RM1.4 billion, even if he succeeded in acquiring all 3,200 acres. Khalid and the state government were also sued for abuse of power in public office by two of the landowning companies, which claimed over RM1 billion in damages.

So where does the RM1.18 billion for 2,200 acres come in? Is it a state bailout, as Rahman, Khalid and now even activist and former opposition lawmaker Kua Kia Soong have tried to suggest?

A private land deal, not a state bailout

The 2,200 acres of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama have been privately owned. Selangor state has never successfully acquired or seized that land. Rahman has confused the legal victory over the 1,000 acres of Alam Perdana land with the 2,200 acres of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama. Khalid and his mouthpiece have also done little to clarify matters.

The RM1.18 billion recently paid for the 2,200 acres of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama came from a private developer with no links to the state.

This was an arms’ length private transaction between one developer and the several companies that owned the land. Selangor state did not transact a single sen or a single lump of soil in this RM1.18 billion deal. There was no bailout by the Selangor government.

In the time since this saga started, the original three companies that owned most of the 3,200 acres had changed ownership. No longer held by Umno cronies, the new owners were the ones that approached the state with a proposal for a settlement with a new private investor.

Selangor state, represented by Azmin and a team of negotiators, was agreeable to a deal that would see the land transferred from troubled owners to a reputable developer, provided that it met certain conditions. Most importantly, the deal would resolve the woes of the settlers. If justice wasn’t delivered to the settlers then Azmin was prepared to block any deal.

A further condition imposed by Azmin (photo) was that the new landowners and creditors would also drop any compensation claims on the state in exchange for their claims being settled by the sale to the developer. This would also extend to the 1,000 acres of Alam Perdana won in court by Selangor and spare the state from the RM860 million compensation bill incurred by Khalid.

Azmin also demanded that all further claims for the 1,000 acres in Alam Perdana be withdrawn so that the state would not have to pay a single sen more for it. It would then be developed for the benefit of the Selangor people.

Finally, the abuse of power suit against Khalid and the state government would be dropped to prevent further liability. Khalid was saved from the threat of bankruptcy once again, thanks to Azmin.

The new owners of the Alam land agreed to this. In one stroke Azmin had liberated the state from over 30 court cases and billions of ringgit in potential liability incurred by Khalid. He had also secured the settlers’ long-awaited compensation and housing.

The financial breakdown

Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama, comprising 2,200 acres of land, were purchased by a developer for RM1.18 billion.

Rahman alleged that a purported RM421 million out of the RM1.18 billion went to the settlers and attempted to cast a negative light on the remaining RM759 million.

However, the breakdown of Rahman’s numbers is completely wrong. Let me clarify:

a) Out of that total, RM185 million was paid to the owners of the land because, well, they owned it. We live in a capitalist society where property rights are tradable, usually for large sums of money. In this case, the former owners only got around RM95,000 per acre. Whether this is a good or bad price for them is not a concern of the state.

b) Once upon a time, the settlers owned the land and they contracted Perbadanan Kemajuan Pertanian Selangor (PKPS) to manage it in a manner similar to Felda.

In 2000, the former BN government of Selangor persuaded the settlers to sell their land to Mujur Zaman, LBCN and Liputan Canggih - at that time crony companies of Umno/BN - in exchange for RM180,000 compensation each and houses each worth RM180,000. This was a deal that was never fulfilled by Umno and its corporate cronies.

At the handing over ceremony two weeks ago on Feb 11, 2018, presided over by present Menteri Besar Azmin Ali, the 981 settlers received RM180,000 compensation and houses worth around RM500,000 at current market value.

A sum of RM295 million out of the total RM1.18 billion purchase price went towards payment of compensation and housing for the settlers. This figure wasn’t higher because some of the compensation had already been paid out previously.

c) The remaining RM700 million was paid out to the various banks and creditors who held mortgages and other debts on the land. The deal would not have been able to go through without settling with the creditors because creditors have legally enforceable rights.

So, there you go. A developer bought the land from the three companies for RM1.18 billion. That money went towards paying off their debts (RM700 million), resolving their unfulfilled promise to the settlers (RM295 million), and the remainder paid for the land itself (RM185 million).

This has not been a hasty deal as Rahman (photo) alleged. The land deal has been reported in the public domain since 2015 in newspapers such as The Edge and the business sections of the dailies.

It may seem sudden if one has never read the news before. Rahman, the BN strategic communications director, is not well-informed. Whoever fed Rahman this information didn’t do a very good job.

Tangled up in debt

During the decades in which Umno and their cronies presided over the Ijok settlement, the land was heavily mortgaged. This is why Khalid was unable to acquire the related Alam Perdana land for free or as cheaply as he might have hoped. The bank successfully sued for its compensation to be paid.

The companies and creditors involved in the Alams of Mutiara and Utama also unleashed a slew of legal cases to block further acquisition by Khalid.

Khalid has voiced his big dream of seizing all of the Ijok land and showing that he could develop it better than the previous owners. Khalid has been consistent in his stance that he could combine the coercive powers available to the government with the self-confidence that he could do business better than anyone else.

However, he failed to appreciate that exercising powers of land acquisition or expropriation carries a price tag of compensation to be paid, as well as many years spent fighting suits and countersuits in court as companies try to resist his efforts. He has been vainly calling for a similar messy approach to resolve the Selangor water consolidation.

Some commentators from BN and civil society think that this should have been the way to go.

This would have taken many more years to fight and would have come with a compensation cost of about RM1.4 billion for all 3,200 acres of the land. Khalid had already spent six years in office with no clear resolution to the issue. His way would have cost the state considerable time and financial burden to realise.

It would also have been grossly unfair to the settlers.

Why? Some claim that the settlers should have been compensated at present-day market value, interest, et cetera. Why not go for more?

Justice for the settlers

The settlers themselves told me that they didn’t want to wait any longer for a better deal. The deal they received in February was better than both the original deal and the “deal” offered by Khalid.

Why was it better? During the 18 years that this process has taken to resolve, 385 out of the 981 settlers have passed away, with their heirs receiving their compensation. The remaining settlers are elderly and worried they wouldn’t have long to enjoy their compensation and homes. They feared that the banks would auction the land, given its bad debts, and that they would be left high and dry.

Pursuing a stubborn struggle through the courts for the state to acquire all the land, then seeing if the land turned a profit, before any portion of the profit would be returned to the people - this was Khalid’s plan, and it was a plan that would have taken too long. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Khalid also refused to fully cover the cost of the settlers’ homes. Since the original offer from Umno’s cronies was for homes worth RM180,000 and such homes in Khalid’s time as MB would cost RM250,000 to build, Khalid wanted the settlers to come up with the balance of RM70,000 each themselves. They could not afford such an amount and rejected this proposal. Khalid was more obsessed with trying to outshine commercial developers, rather than seeking justice for the settlers.

The deal that Azmin was able to help facilitate garnered the settlers houses worth RM500,000 and compensation of RM180,000. This was an outcome that the settlers had negotiated with the private developer, recognising that it was better to close a good deal rather than try to push for something the developer might not accept.

This is why the settlers of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama are happy. After 18 years of disappointment, uncertainty and ill-treatment, they finally have what they were promised.

Out of the 981 settlers and their heirs, the Umno-controlled media has focused on just one lone individual who is disgruntled and tried to present him as representative of more than just himself. They have completely ignored the settlers’ committee, which convened a press conference on Tuesday to rebut Rahman Dahlan’s false claims

Khalid’s mouthpiece Faekah Husin has tried to suggest that the housing problems of the settlers in Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama had been resolved during his time. This is false and she has admitted as much by stating that only a number of settlers in the neighbouring Alam Perdana received house keys during his time in office. Like Rahman, she is confused.

Summary

Thus, to summarise, Umno and its cronies sank the Alam lands into a mire of debt and failed to deliver their promises to the settlers. Khalid tried to play the role of a developer with coercive powers of government but ended up tied down in legal cases and compensation claims. He was unable to resolve the problems of all the settlers, he was unable to develop the land.

Azmin managed to resolve this mess by imposing conditions on a private acquisition of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama that solved the settlers’ woes, that incurred no cost to the state, and secured the state’s claim on Alam Perdana at no further cost.

This good deed has been politicised because Umno/BN cannot clean itself up, so it is trying to tarnish Selangor’s achievements, from affordable housing under Rumah Selangorku to solving the problems of the Ijok settlers.

BN, meanwhile, has been presiding over a housing crisis it cannot solve and Felda settlers that continue to suffer under its mismanagement.

As for Khalid, it is clear that he still harbours political ambitions for the menteri besar’s office. He will need the help of Umno to reclaim it. This is why he has turned up at the Umno Selangor convention and has tried to piggyback on their false allegations against the Selangor government. Thus, it is no surprise that we see them both trying to attack Azmin and Selangor.

In the coming months, the people of Selangor will decide who serves the people best. The settlers of Alam Mutiara and Alam Utama know for sure who has helped resolve their 18-year struggle for justice and peace of mind.

YIN SHAO LOONG is Strategic Communications Director of the Selangor Menteri Besar’s Office.