RM400 mln needed to upgrade infrastructure in Kampung Baru

Its minister, Tan Sri Annuar Musa said the ministry would, however, ensure that building roads and other infrastructure in the area would involve minimum land acquisition, besides getting the agreement of the landowners.

"There are certain roads that need to be closed and new roads be built for better restructuring of the road system," he said at a news conference held at the ministry, here, today.

Annuar had reportedly said before that the redevelopment of Kampung Baru would see the area divided into precincts or parcels involving sub-division for each hectare, thus enabling further division into certain grids or smaller blocks.

The previous government’s proposal involving land acquisition from over 5,300 owners at the price of RM1,000 per sq ft (RM850 cash and special purpose vehicle shares of RM150) could not proceed due to financial constraints, apart from only 61 per cent of the residents agreeing to the offer made.

On another matter, Annuar said his ministry was willing to have another road be renamed Jalan Palestin after the choice of Jalan Raja Laut 1 received objection from various quarters.

He said the name change issue arose after a small road, Jalan Raja Laut 1, which is adjacent to Jalan Raja Laut, was proposed to be named as Jalan Palestin as it was felt that this would not affect the honour given to Raja Laut (a major Malay figure in Kuala Lumpur’s history).

"However, I have asked that the matter be reviewed for another road be chosen instead and the road name of Jalan Raja Laut 1 to remain," he added.

Annuar said the proposal to name a road in the federal capital as Jalan Palestin was made in 2019 by the then Federal Territories Ministry following a seminar on Al-Quds.

He said he did not encourage road names related to the country’s history and national identity be removed and instead, road names that were no longer relevant or had no impact be chosen for renaming.

Meanwhile, Annuar confirmed that an application had been sent to DBKL’s City Planning Department for permission to build a Johor palace on a piece of land in Bukit Persekutuan (Federal Hill), Kuala Lumpur.

On an open letter that went viral on social media, claiming that the government quarters in Bukit Persekutuan would be demolished for the building of the palace, Annuar said the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar indeed owned a piece of land there and wanted to build a palace on that land.