Check fraudulent change of land ownership, department told
09/08/2007 The Star

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government has asked the Land and Mines Department to investigate claims that some land office workers are involved in fraudulently changing land ownership after the original owners have died.

Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo said the government viewed such cases seriously and wanted the culprits identified if the claims are true.

He has asked the department to seek the help of the Anti-Corruption Agency and police, he told a press conference after chairing the weekly state executive council meeting here yesterday.

He said two cases, one in Klang and the other in Sabak Bernam, surfaced recently. In one of them, the land office had documents purportedly signed by the original owner – some 10 years after the owner's death.

The investigators are expected to take three to four months to conclude their investigations.

On another matter, Dr Khir said the state government could not gazette the land occupied by Zoo Negara as a heritage reserve because the land had been alienated to the Hong Kong And Shanghai Bank Bhd as trustees since 1982.

He said the trustees had paid part of the premium and taxes for the land, following the alienation, and the state government could not now take the land back.

He said, however, there was no need for the public to fear the redevelopment of the land, as the conditions of the alienation would not allow the trustees to change its use easily.

“The conditions of the alienation clearly stipulate that the land cannot be developed or sold without the consent of the Selangor government,” he said.

He was responding to a report in a Malay daily on Tuesday, quoting Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid as saying that he would ask the Cabinet to gazette the 48ha piece of land as it was deemed a “hot property”.

Azmi also said that 8ha of the land had already become a housing project and delays in gazetting it could mean the size of the land would continue to shrink and there would be encroachment into the zoo itself.