Former Selangor menteri besar Mohamad Khir Toyo has accused his successor Khalid Ibrahim of lying by taking credit for recovering debts that Talam Corp owed the state government.

To support his argument, he quoted state exco member Teresa Kok who said yesterday that the five leasehold offices at Menara Pandan were signed off to the state government in 2006 when it was under BN administration.

He also quoted Khalid and Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua as saying that the BN-led government had never collected the debt.

“The fact is that Khalid is merely continuing the previous government’s efforts to recover Talam’s debt with state-owned subsidiaries by doing some strange arrangements to the extent of starting a new scandal.

“So the reality is it is now proven that Selangor is led by a liar who is willing to twist facts for his own political interests,” he wrote in his blog today.

Khir said the government under his administration had already decided that Talam needed to settle its debts directly with the state subsidiaries under the supervision of a special committee to be led by the state secretary.

This is in contrast to Khalid’s move to consolidate the debts under another state-held subsidiary, Menteri Besar Incorporated.

However, Pua told a forum last night that although the settlement agreement was signed in 2006, no attempt was made to recover the property.

“In 2006, they signed the settlement agreement. Up to when we (Pakatan Rakyat) came in (power in 2008), they still have not recovered the properties. They signed a settlement for what?” he said.

He said the office lots were later incorporated as part of the Pakatan Rakyat government’s debt settlement package, and they were able to recover the RM392 million debt within a year of the settlement package being signed.