KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 31): Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) today said it had in August 2018 commissioned a review by an independent party in relation to the purchase of land contiguous to the central bank's Sasana Kijang complex known as Lot 41 for a reported RM2.066 billion.

The central bank was responding to a report this morning that four BNM officials had been told to go on leave pending investigations into the central bank's purchase of the land.

When the land was purchased in January, BNM announced that it will be used for the relocation of the Global Islamic Finance University and the International Shari'ah Research Academy for Islamic Finance.

In a brief statement today, BNM said the review is still ongoing.

"To facilitate the review, relevant officers of BNM have opted to take a leave of absence," it said.

The StarOnline this morning had reported that the four were put on leave as the authorities including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigate further into how the sale was concluded, without citing the source of the information.

It added that in June this year, former Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Tan Sri Muhammad Ibrahim resigned from his post over the controversy.

The report said the controversy over the land sale came about because the proceeds were alleged to have been used to settle some of the liabilities of debt-laden 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

The issues were the pricing and speed in which the transaction was completed. The RM2 billion price tag is what the land would have cost if the purchase was for commercial reasons, it said.

However in BNM's case, the purchase was not for commercial reasons hence the contention was the price should have been lower.

Also, the money was transferred to the federal government before the full transaction was completed.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said someone in BNM "obviously knows" what happened to the RM2 billion paid by the central bank to purchase the land from the Finance Ministry.

He was responding to the news report from earlier this morning which said the BNM officials had been suspended.

"I only know that the land was sold to Bank Negara. What happens after that, I don't know. Where the money goes, I don't know.

"But obviously somebody in Bank Negara knows about it. [The authorities] are investigating, that's all," said Dr Mahathir at a press conference on national policy on Industry 4.0 here.