In Selangor, almost all trails go back to Khir Toyo

Hazlan Zakaria

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim's political secretary Faekah Husin is perplexed by the vociferous attacks of former MB Khir Toyo on her boss, as she says the accusations only lead back to Khir.
"If I were Khir Toyo, I would shut up," said the successful former lawyer to Malaysiakini in an exclusive interview at her office yesterday.

She explained that her investigations into the alleged problems and issues raised by the Umno stalwart only revealed a trail of breadcrumbs that led back to the state opposition leader and those close to him.

She gave the example of Felda lands in Ijok where development is delayed as the block title for the land cannot be issued to developers.

"This involves about 60 settler families and 120 acres of land. They accuse Khalid of being responsible. What kind of corporate man is this? Why the delay? They ask."

But the real problem, contended Faekah, originates with the issuance of the Felda land titles.

"I even see the name of a dentist on the Felda land titles! Now, that is only one case, I haven't yet looked at the names of their wives and relatives. Who knows, who else might show up," hinted the political secretary.

She alluded that some of the names she discovered included prominent figures who are currently running all over the state pointing fingers and giving talks in order to 'save' Selangor.

Tip of the iceberg

"(Land titles were given to) People in power and their families... They were distributed to division chiefs. If they were afraid to be named, they use their wife's name and so on," claimed Faekah.

These 'undeserving' title holders, she said, only want to sell it later for a higher price to the developers and make a quick and easy profit.

They are the stumbling block as they refuse to surrender the titles unless their price is paid.

"You see, even if a single land title is not surrendered, you cannot issue a block title to the developers. That is the real story," she said.

Faekah further revealed that the Felda lands in Ijok are but the tip of the iceberg and there are many more cases like it throughout the state, most of them originating during the tenure of Khir.

Much ado about bonus

She also shared her discovery of unusually high monetary and material 'incentives' that state officials under the previous administrations enjoyed from state-owned companies.

This, she said, is the reason why Khir is making much ado about bonuses given by state sand mining arm Kumpulan Semesta Sdn Bhd (KSSB).

"He is attacking us on the bonuses but the real issue is about something else."

According to Faekah, she found this out some time ago when her boss Khalid suddenly received an 'incentive' payment of RM145,000 from PKNS as well as an offer to purchase high-value land in Damansara at a significant discount.

"He was angry and shocked. Who approved this? What is the procedure, he asked; and instructed me to look into it," related Faekah.

From her investigations she found out that the "incentive" payment was standard practice to all state officials since the previous administrations.

She believed the procedure used is questionable as the payments were never approved by the PKNS board but released by the GLC's financial department on an ad-hoc basis.

"They said that this was the way it was done since the former administration," said Faekah on what the PKNS financial department staff told her about the "incentive" pay-outs.

According to her, other than the MB, state exco members also received these 'incentives'. She said that Khalid refused the land offer but is still keeping the cheque from PKNS as proof to show the state assembly before returning it later.

Pocketed 'incentives'

She also said that Khalid is in the midst of drawing up proper guidelines on how and how much of such incentives should be given to state officials, for submission to the state legislative assembly to curb future excesses.

More damningly, Faekah sniped, records she managed to dig up show that there were previous state officers who pocketed many such 'incentives' during their rule over Selangor.

Faekah also explained away the controversy surrounding the much talked about six-months KSSB bonus as simply being back-pay and arrears.

"They started the company from zero and Khalid only paid them one-third of their actual pay as the company lacked resources. But they worked hard and managed to get KSSB up and running.

"The mistake was to label the payments as bonuses. It should have been classified as back-pay and arrears," she clarified.

Conflict of interest

Attempts by Khir to muddy Khalid over the water concession issue are also unfounded, said Faekah, claiming that Khir was the real culprit behind the entire thing.

"The water concession agreement was formulated during his time. He tried to pass the buck to the MB before him but I believe it was during his tenure. I did my homework," she said.

The former legal practitioner added that there are also some concerns of conflict of interest as the water concession was given to Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas), which was headed by Rozali Ismail, who at the time of award, was state Umno treasurer.

Rozali, who is also Selangor Malay Chamber of Commerce (DPMMS) chairperson, is also currently very vocal in lamenting the fate of Malay contractors who, he said, have been 'sidelined' by the state.

Faekah claims this is not true.

"We invited the Malay contractors to sit down with us and discuss their needs regarding the development blueprint and the open budget.

"But they did not come, how can we know what they need?"

She believed that the Malay contractors have been too comfortable with the preferential treatment given by the previous administration and spent too long using that as a crutch, instead of learning to be more competitive.

"I think they are too dimanjakan (spoilt)," opined Faekah.