CRITICIZED BAILOUT BY EPF

PKR Sabah Secretary cum Central Council Member, Dr Roland Chia criticized the move by the BN government in getting the Employers Provident Fund (EPF) to bail out FGVH by accumulating shares of Felda Global Ventures Holdings (FGVH) even as shares of the plantation giant sank to a new low yesterday, closing at RM4.68 a share or just 13 sen above its issuing price.

In the context of Sabah ,this listing of FGVH has also caused 306,000 acres of Sabah Land of which much of this land occupied by natives to be absorbed into this controversial listing.

According to filings with Bursa Malaysia, the country's largest pension fund's stake in FGVH have increased 5.4 per cent since September 3, the day before FGVH plunged below the RM5 mark.

FGVH was the second largest initial public offer (IPO) in the world this year and its shares rose 20 per cent in the first day of trading to RM5.46 but have been in a general downward trajectory since.

FGVH could also struggle with its ageing oil palm trees that account for 53 per cent of the 320,000 hectares of oil palm estates which rank among the highest in the industry and a replanting exercise would mean even more loss of income for the group during the period it takes for trees to mature.

FGVH also reportedly suffers from a productivity in terms of tonnes per hectare that ranks as the third lowest among the major Malaysian plantations firms.

In the context of Sabah, this is another bad deal, instead FELDA should return 306,000 acres of land to the State of Sabah because FELDA had breach its promise and reneged from its obligations to develop the land given to FELDA intended to serve the interest of the people of Sabah back in the 1970s.

The BN Government should explain to the people and account for its failure and incompetence in allowing FELDA to deviate from the original objective after having allocated some 306,000 acres of State land to FELDA for land settlement schemes intended to serve the benefit of the people of Sabah. 

FELDA was required to provide a housing plot of land to each settler and his family together with a dwelling house built on it within the residential land of the scheme.    In fact, FELDA only used less than 10% of the land allocated to it by the State Government for the intended settlement scheme involving only about 1,500 settlers each allocated with 14 acres of land.      

Instead, FELDA continued to occupy and develop the massive acreage of land into oil palm plantation as landowner utilizing public funds and generating billions of revenues and profits for the benefit of the Federal Government. I am not surprised the revenues from Sabah had contributed substantially to the RM400 million FELDA office complex built recently in Kuala Lumpur. Dr Roland Chia lamented.