He was responding to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s question to the ministry on the need for such a corporate building when the country is going through the Covid-19 crisis.

According to the minister, the deal which was carried out through a land swap, followed all necessary procurement procedures and was approved at the Cabinet level.

Kiandee said the process had also gone through three different prime ministers over the past nine years – Najib Razak, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Muhyiddin Yassin.

“And it was only passed now and signed off by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government,” he said in his reply at the Dewan Rakyat today.

Earlier today, Anwar questioned the reason for spending a whopping RM220 million under the 2021 budget for the corporate building in Kelana Jaya, Selangor.

He said with this being a “Covid-19 budget”, the money should be used to help poor farmers impacted by the pandemic.

“Fama was set up to help poor farmers market their produce. What is our priority? Is it to help farmers or to build a palace in Kelana Jaya?” the Port Dickson MP had asked.

Kiandee, who is Beluran MP, explained that the corporate building will have an Agro Bazaar centre to sell and market food produce, further stating that the function and role of Fama has been updated to keep up with the demands of e-commerce.

“Small farmers are guided to provide products according to market needs and use modern marketing methods to stay relevant to the needs of the industry,” the PPBM MP said.

Kiandee added that during Covid-19, controlled fresh markets were set up to ensure agriculture produce worth RM800 million from 5,050 farmers and 4,900 entrepreneurs could be marketed.