Bankruptcy for Felda if Felda Plantation is dissolved, says Ahmad Maslan

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MARAN: The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) will be bankrupt if the agency dissolves its subsidiary, Felda Plantation Sdn Bhd, and the 330,000 hectares of farm land distributed to the second and third generations of Felda settlers.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Ahmad Maslan said the government would not bow to pressure from the opposition to dissolve Felda Plantation because doing so would cause an annual loss of RM1.6 billion to the agency.

“The 330,000 hectares of land is not owned by, but was given to, Felda Plantation for development.

Fifty-one per cent of the land is owned by settlers through shares in the Felda Settlers Cooperative, with the remaining under Felda.

“Felda obtains annual profits of RM1.6 billion from rubber and oil palm estates, and should it be divided among the 1.6 million second and third generation of Felda settlers, they will each receive 0.4 hectare,” he told reporters after opening the Jengka 4 Felda Multi-purpose Hall, near here last Sunday.

Ahmad said 87,000 hectares of the 330,000 hectares of land was in Sabah and that it would be difficult to distribute them to children of settlers in the Peninsular.

“Dissolving the company would not only affect the 63,000 staff of Felda Holding and Felda, but also their families,” he said.

Ahmad said the federal government had never injected capital into Felda for the management of land owned by settlers or land developed by the agency.

Instead, he said, the RM1.6 billion, which was obtained by Felda through its farm operations, was used to cover management expenses and pay employees’ salary and bonus for settlers.

He said the fund also covered tuition and scholarships for the settlers’ children to further their studies in various fields such as automotive, aerospace and shipping.

He added that if Felda Plantation Sdn Bhd was dissolved, the government would need to provide RM1.6 billion to manage Felda and to provide for the two million settlers and their family members.

The allocation, he said, would result in no development for 15,000 traditional villages nationwide and would be unfair to the 25 million of Malaysians who are not settlers.

“The opposition is jealous of the development achieved by Felda which has received world recognition, with assets in the country and abroad,” he added. — Bernama