Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today that he was prepared to investigate a multi-million ringgit logging scandal involving Umno Pahang.

However, the party president added that "as far as I am concerned, Umno does not own any land in Pahang."

Mahathir said that state land could only be alienated to a private company, and not a political party.

"Does that company belong to Umno? How can a political party be given state land?" he said after chairing the Umno supreme council meeting at the party headquarters this afternoon.

The premier was asked to comment on malaysiakini 's recent reports that Umno Pahang had been given a vast plot of land, approximately 40 sq km in size, near Pekan five years ago.

The controversial transaction took place during Khalil Yaacob's tenure as mentri besar, who is now Umno secretary-general and information minister.

However, the legitimacy for Umno Pahang to log on the 10,000-acre land is questionable since it was never owned by the party as it had repeatedly failed to pay a RM4.8 million land premium.

Despite this, some 70 percent of the land has since been cleared.

Probe PAS too

Mahathir then proceeded to take a swipe at PAS for its own logging practices in Kelantan and Terengganu - the states controlled by the rival Muslim-based party.

"When did Umno do this (awarding land to the party)? It is PAS which has been giving out land to its members, even though the land shouldn't be logged.

"If you do a survey, you will see it. This is PAS," he claimed.

However, the prime minister expressed his willingness to probe the allegations against Umno Pahang.

"All I know is that none of the land has been given (to Umno Pahang) ... but, yes, I'm always ready to investigate.

"We will investigate Kelantan and Terengganu too. Let's see who gives and who gets (the land)," he added.

Not aware of Khalil's case

On a related matter, the outgoing premier said he had not received any report on the investigations launched two years ago against Khalil for alleged discrepancies in awarding logging concessions.

The report was lodged by Beserah state assembly representative Fauzi Abdul Rahman in 2001.

"Datuk Fauzi? That one (report), I don't know. I don't know what happened to that... Has he followed up (on the report) recently?" Mahathir asked.

Mahathir was then informed that Fauzi had earlier said the internal probe initiated by the party had been completed , and it was left to the leadership to reveal its findings.

Looking at a stunned Khalil, who was seated beside to him, Mahathir said: "I have not received any news about it."

When approached after the press conference, Khalil declined to make any comment.

In his report, Fauzi claimed that the Umno liaison office under Khalil's stewardship flouted logging regulations by extracting more than the quantity stipulated in its permit under the national forestry policy.

Though the report was later referred to the Anti-Corruption Agency, the party supreme council decided to establish an ad-hoc committee to internally investigate the allegations. The progress of both probes remain unknown.

However, it could not be established whether the investigation which Fauzi referred to was related to the logging scam in Nenasi - about 50 km south of Pekan - which was highlighted by malaysiakini since last week.