He said the involvement of third parties in the form of private valuers who were not certified by developers nor government-linked companies, was extremely regrettable, as they were hoping to capitalise on the opportunity by taking advantage of land owners.

“They issued notices and invited land owners to attend a briefing on the land acquisition by the government (for the KXP airport development), but in reality, they are not involved, they just want to become middlemen,” said Mukhriz.

He spoke to reporters after handing over land titles and temporary occupation licences to long-term residents of Kubang Pasu here.

He expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that these third parties were claiming to have complete information about the proposed boundary for the airport development, when in fact this matter was still being deliberated on by the government and was not yet announced.

The menteri besar advised land owners to deal directly with the state government on the matter, to avoid being made use of by these third parties, adding that the value of relevant land plots would be in line with the valuation set by the Valuation and Property Services Department.

“When it (land acquisition) is undertaken for the benefit of the public, we don’t want the cost to skyrocket because in the end, this will make a failure of the project…so we will all lose out,” he added.