Selangor Menteri Besar Mohamed Azmin Ali and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng have been reminded to be careful in issuing statements pertaining to the MACC's probe on issues in their respective that could tantamount to defamation.

MACC Chief Commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad was quoted by The Star saying the reminder is on the land sale issue in Ijok, Selangor and the undersea tunnel project in Penang.

Dzulkifli said Azmin and Lim should give MACC the space to carry out independent probes into the issues, as "all parties" want the issue to be resolved quickly instead of dragging on.

"For example, Azmin had previously claimed that MACC raided his office regarding the RM1.18 billion land sale issue in Ijok, Selangor.

"I would like to stress that MACC never conducted such raid, maybe Azmin is daydreaming," Dzulkifli told a press conference after attending a function to rope in women to fight graft, in Putrajaya yesterday.

According to Dzulkifli, MACC only raided five companies, including four developers, and a lawyer's firm, and seized documents to assist the investigation into the land sales, but no arrests were made.

It was previously reported that the Selangor government had returned land in Ijok to two development companies which later sold it to a third party at a market price amounting to RM1.18 billion, while the compensation given to the settlers was only about RM420 million.

On the women against graft initiative, Dzulkifli said Malaysia was the first country to rope in women to fight corruption.

He said that MACC statistics between 2012 and January this year show that 700 investigation papers were opened against female corruption suspects, out of which, 453 were arrested, and 183, taken to court.