Hisham refutes Rafidah's allegations over military land

PETALING JAYA: Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein has denied the allegations by Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz that a three-person company owns all the military land in the country.

"Rafidah's allegations that a three-person company now owns Mindef (Defence Ministry) and military land in Malaysia are not true and an outright lie," the Defence Minister said in a video posted on his Facebook page on Monday (April 9).

Rafidah, a former Cabinet minister, said in her Facebook post on Sunday (April 8), that then defence minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had, back in 2008, proposed to privatise military land in the country to a three-person company.

She claimed that the proposal was made to the government and was then approved.

In her post, she had challenged Najib, who is Prime Minister, to clarify whether current on-going projects involved privatising military land.

The projects, which she had listed, were the Bandar Malaysia project at the former Sungai Besi air force base, the relocation of the Majidee camp, the East Coast Rail Link, the KL-Singapore high speed rail, a large-scale commercial agricultural project, and the sale of the Butterworth air force base.

Hishammuddin also clarified that the large-scale commercial agricultural project was the Defence Ministry's attempt to look at "food security".

"I was only thinking about food security with the Agriculture Minister, and that was two to three years ago. Nothing has happened since then," he said.

Hishammuddin also questioned Rafidah's motives for allegedly making false statements.

"I believe she is being very irresponsible as a member of Cabinet at that time, to make false allegations on these issues," he said.

He added that he will be getting the Ministry and the Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) to reply to Rafidah's other allegations.

"I have asked for the Cabinet minutes to see what her allegations are. We will get to the bottom of this," he said.