Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad has confirmed that several individuals from the Kuala Lumpur City Hall's (DBKL) procurement division had their statements recorded by the MACC over the allegedly leaked list of companies involved in river cleaning contracts.

Internal action has been taken and the KL mayor has ordered 20 personnel in the division to be transferred to other departments within a month, he said, as reported by Bernama.

This comes in the wake of blogger Zaharn Mohd Yasin alleging that the federal territories minister had improperly handled the tendering process for a river cleaning project.

In January, Zaharn had uploaded onto social media a "leaked" list of contractors said to have been awarded contracts to clean rivers and ponds in Kuala Lumpur.

Khalid has since threatened to sue the blogger over the allegation.

The minister also said that for projects with more than one prospective bidder, a draw is usually conducted to select the winner of the contract.

The draw, he said, is a method to break the "cartels" controlling the DBKL in the awarding of contracts.