Wednesday, February 10, 2010

July 08, 2009 21:29 PM

No Proof Yet Of Irregularities In PKFZ Issue:MB

SHAH ALAM, July 8 (Bernama) -- Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim Wednesday said there had not been any proof that showed there had been any irregularities in the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) project.

He said it was his opinion that what happened was that the Port Klang Authority (PKA) was not experienced in managing the free zone and needed to be responsible for the investments made.

"We can say there were irregularities if there is proof but at the very least I feel the PKA is not good in business," he said when replying to a supplementary question by Dr Shafie Abu Bakar (PAS-Bangi) if there was an element of corruption in the project whereby cost of constructiion may go up to RM12.5 billion from the original cost of RM2 billion during the state assembly sitting here today.

Abdul Khalid said rather than have some quarters look for wrongdoings in the viability of the project it was better for the federal government to write off PKA's current owings for the project to reduce losses.

He said if the cost including interest rose to RM12 billion, PKA had to have profits of almost RM1.2 billion a year to get returns of 10 per cent a year to pay off the owings and meet operating costs and according to him that was difficult to achieve based on his experience at the helm of Kumpulan Guthrie previously.

However, he said if the federal government wrote off the current owings for the project cost of RM3 billion with a target of getting a 10 per cent profit, that is RM300 million a year, it was a projection that was realistically achevable by PKFZ.

Abdul Khalid also said the state government was ready to help PKFZ to attract investment and hoped that the state's executive councillors were accepted as PKA board members as now only senior state government officers were reprentatives.

While answering a question by Ng Suee Lim (DAP-Sekinchan) on when the state government awarded 400ha of land to Koperasi Kemajuan Pulau Lumut and the reason the land was given, Abdul Khalid said the giving of the land was agreed upon at the state exco meeting of Jan 9, 1990.

The land was meant for agricultural purposes, he said.

It is understood that the land was sold to Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd before PKA bought it from Kuala Dimensi for the development of PKFZ.

-- BERNAMA

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