Efforts made to buy building but aborted: Sedia
Published on: Friday, December 23, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority (Sedia) said efforts were made to own the building it presently occupies near the Kepayan Lido-junction, but had to be aborted as the offer price was too high. The building meets all the criteria Sedia needs namely, it is near the airport, rental is reasonable, has adequate space and not vulnerable to traffic jams, it said, clarifying what it termed as "the erroneous statement by (Likas Assemblyman) Junz Wong". "Sedia was advised to buy the building by a senior representative of the Federal Government and a valuation exercise was commissioned in 2010. The price offered was about RM28 million. However, the result of the valuation report indicated the value of the building at the point of time was only RM21 million.
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"Thus, the intention to purchase was subsequently not approved by the Sedia Members of Authority," the agency said in a statement. It previously operated from the office of the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at Karamunsing Complex.It said it is renting the building at the "cheapest rate in town" for the last six years at RM1.80 per square foot, which was never revised over the course. It also said that the premises was initially reserved for use by another State Government agency but it gave way to Sedia due to urgency.Sedia said this in response to claims by the Parti Warisan Sabah Vice President who said that Sedia could have its own building by now instead of paying RM60,000 a month on rental to the landlord.
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The landlord who also owned a hotel near the Sedia building, Wong said, was a businessman also implicated in the Water Department corruption scandal. The office of the CEO said Sedia is a body fully funded by the Federal Government and comes under the Prime Minister's Department. Thus, all its procurement procedures strictly follow Treasury instructions.
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"Sedia's financial reports had been given a clean bill of health for seven consecutive years by the Auditor-General and Sedia also received a four-star rating in the Accountability Index from the National Audit Department in 2014. "Sedia's management process is certified as complying with the internationally accredited Quality Management System Standard and Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance – MS ISO 9001:2008. "All these would not have been made possible if Sedia were to engage in questionable transactions," it said. Sedia also said it came about through an enactment on 15.1.2009 and began operations in March the same year to expedite the implementation of the Sabah Development Corridor (SDC). Despite this, Sedia is a statutory body fully funded by the Federal Government through the Prime Minister's Department. The SDC projects are fully funded by allocations approved by the Economic Planning Unit channeled to Sedia by the Federal Finance Ministry. The statement said that since the launching of SDC in 2008 until September 2016, a total of RM158 billion worth of investments have been committed in Sabah, of which RM57.68b had been realized. It said in terms of development expenditure, the Federal Finance Ministry had channeled RM2.09b under the 9th, 10th and 11th Malaysia Plans to Sedia. Of this RM94.5pc or RM1.9b had been disbursed and that SDC projects under the 9th Plan had been completed, while the rest are in various stages of completion. It said all the initiatives under the SDC contributed to Sabah's 6.1pc GDP growth in 2015, fastest in Malaysia and higher than the nation's 5pc. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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