The Selangor government is offering a RM5,000 reward to village heads, members of the village security and development

committees and public servants for foiling sand theft in their areas.

Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said the reward was an incentive for those who helped the state government check sand theft which was a loss to the people.

"However, they can only claim the reward if they manage to nab the suspects and seize the heavy machinery used by the syndicates to steal sand in the state.

"The conditions and procedure in giving the reward will be announced soon," he said after chairing the weekly state executive council meeting in Shah Alam today.

Khalid said legal selling of sand constituted only 25 per cent of the market valued at about RM25 million, but he was confident that RM75 million in revenue could be earned annually if sand theft could be stopped.

He also advised the public to report to the relevant authority on cases of abuse of power and corruption in the state.

In another development, Khalid said the state government had ordered Kumpulan Semesta Sdn Bhd (KSSB), a state government sudsidiary company holding the sand mining concession, to provide a list of its staff salary and bonus for perusal.

Recently, the Selangor Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) was told that KSSB employees received two-month bonus in December 2008 although it had only been operating for four months from September that year.

The company's non-executive chairperson Abdul Shukor Nahor reportedly had testified at Selcat's public hearing that the employees included KSSB's board of directors who received an additional four-month bonus between January and June 2009.

Shukor had said that the bonus was given based on the company's targeted income and as incentive for the employees to work hard.

- Bernama