KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (July 10): The Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) needs to improve its administration, and settlers must collaborate with the agency to secure a long-term future, according to Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy). FELDA expects to attain its palm oil extraction rate aim of up to 25% in two or three years by improving management, he said.
Mustapa emphasized that the government wants the settlers to collaborate with FELDA, and that management needs to be improved as well, as this is one of the government’s terms and conditions.
“I know the majority of the settlers are grateful (for Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s announcement on July 7, 2021 of a partial remission of their legacy loans), and we urge the settlers and FELDA management to accept the terms and circumstances imposed.
“When the debt is lower, the government wants to see FELDA be more sustainable,” he remarked yesterday night on the Agenda AWANI program “Felda Regeneration Initiative.”
Settlements must be constant in submitting their proceeds and rigorous in repaying debts, according to Mustapa, and farm management should be left to FELDA.
“Previously, the farms were managed by various parties, so FELDA believes it is more capable of managing the farms because there have been various practices and a lack of discipline. “This debt reduction is conditional, which gives rise to the concept of working together with FELDA, but this is part of the conditions that the management will clarify with the settlers “he stated
The government decided to offset a portion of the settlers’ loans totaling RM8.3 billion through a conditional loan adjustment scheme, with the goal of assisting settlers and their descendants in returning to FELDA’s original objective.
The conditional disposal, according to Muhyiddin, includes a partial adjustment of the replanting loan debt as of December 31, 2019, totaling RM8 billion, which would benefit 92,441 settlers, or 82 percent of the total 112,638 settlers./n
