SARAWAK Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) generated a group total revenue of RM473.99 million and group profit before tax of RM119.71 million as at August 31 this year.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu said this in his winding-up speech, where he also disclosed that its estate operations recorded an operating surplus of RM84.6 million.
He also forecasted that should the price of crude palm oil remain favourbale for the last quarter of this year, estate operations would achieve an operating surplus of around RM120 million.
This would enable Salcra’s board to consider the highest and “most handsome” ever dividend payment of not less than RM50 million to landowners and participants for this year, he added.
Jabu also disclosed that as at the end of last September, 1,060 hectares of new land were developed and 4,105 hectares of old oil palm estates had been successfully replanted, while under the 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP) the total acreage for new development was 4,270 hectares and for replanting was 5,172 hectares.
Under the 10th Malaysia Rolling Plan for 2011 and 2012, the federal government had allowed Salcra to continue implementing projects covering 6,750 hectare for new oil palm estates under 9MP, for which it had approved a grant of RM2.7 million for construction of estate infrastructure, he revealed.
Out of this, 3,000 hectares would be developed next year and the remaining 3,750 hectares would be developed in 2012.
He also disclosed that Salcra would bid for new oil palm projects to be implemented at Balingian and Nanga Skuau under the 2013 and 2014 Rolling Plan.
Jabu then thanked the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) and the government for involving Salcra with other agencies in the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) Lab for Bumiputeras in Sabah and Sarawak on land and legal issues.
To this, he said that Salcra would use its subsidiary company, Salcra Jaya Sdn Bhd, as one of the vehicles to realise thetransformation.
He appreciated the state government for having granted RM15 million to part-finance the construction of the newly completed Salcra building and Unimas for installing the state-of-the art building management system.
The building has been selected by Cisco to be their case study for public sector and is one of their two clients selected from the Asia Pacific region.
Jabu, who is Minister for Rural Development, was pleased that Salcra had succeeded in continuing its role to develop the rural areas over the past 34 years.
As at last Sept 30, he said, it was managing 18 oil palm estates with a total planted area of 48,782 hectares, of which 4.839 hectares are old mature, 31,903 prime mature and 3,412 young mature, 1,111 hectares involved in scout harvesting and 7,517 hectares immature areas.
As of that date, it produced 419,595 metric tonnes of fresh fruit bunches compared to 406,795 metrci tonnes last year, an increase of 12,800 metric tonnes despite replanting of three estates, he pointed out.
He also said that Salcra now employs 3,579 estate workers of which 1,942 are foreign.
He also expressed confidence that it will achieve an all-time high performance in terms of yield and profitability this year.