She said her remarks in the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 9 – when she attributed the land ownership transfer to a decision made during Annuar’s tenure as federal territories minister – were supported by official government records.

Zaliha said Annuar, who accused her of lying and challenged her to repeat her statement outside Parliament, should produce evidence if he believed her statements were false.

“His allegation that I distorted the truth is serious slander that damages my reputation as a minister and seeks to undermine the integrity of Parliament itself,” she said in a statement.

“If he insists that I misrepresented the facts, then he should come forward and present proof. The integrity of the Dewan Rakyat cannot be compromised by baseless accusations,” she said.

She also reiterated that the government’s priority was to ensure that residents who had agreed to return to Kampung Sungai Baru could do so promptly and receive their rightful compensation.

Zaliha told the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 9 that Annuar made a rushed decision to allow a developer to own a plot of land in Kampung Sungai Baru which was slated for redevelopment.

She said the process of gazetting the land transfer to the developer under the Land Acquisition Act was completed in just three days, between June 18 and June 21, 2021.

Zaliha also said the developer’s request to acquire the land was deliberated on at a post-Cabinet meeting chaired by Annuar in September 2020, with the recommendations of the meeting approved by the federal territories land executive committee on April 21, 2021.

Annuar, who served as federal territories minister from March 2020 to August 2021, later said that Zaliha’s statement blaming him for a “rushed” land approval was misleading.