http://mpraub.blogspot.my/2017/02/ya-kenapa-tidak-umno-yang-bertanding.html
Yesterday morning, a few colleagues and I were with YB Rafizi Ramli at
a press conference. It was held at his office at Invoke Space. It was to
announce an upcoming event about a Congress on Felda. It is planned to take
place in March 2017. I hope members of the general public and public spirited
individuals will come.
As we are aware, Felda has come into much of the news lately. Unfortunately
for the wrong reasons. Papers will be presented at that Congress.Then, people will know what is going on in Felda.
For a few months already, the opposition parties have been going
around to felda settlements to make the felda people aware of the social,
political and economic issues around the country. We want the felda people to
realise that their problems were the result of an even bigger calamity faced by
our country. We are living under the kleptocratic government of a man known as
Najib Tun Razak. His government is a government of thieves, by thieves and for
thieves. They are stealing money at every corner and making the country suffer.
Worse, they are hiding behind the protection of the law. 7 countries have found many things wrong with 1MDB. Yet our country’s AG said,
there is no crime or illegal conduct with 1MDB. Is our legal system
protecting bad people?
Other than public rallies, we will distribute handbills and
leaflets. Felda people can read about the issues in their spare time. Maybe
they can discuss among themselves at the warungs and pekan sehari. The issues
are not only about felda but national issues.
Felda settlers need to free themselves from reading Utusan
Malaysia and other media controlled by UMNO. According to a research done, the
Media leads the category of people, the public distrusts most. I would urge
felda people not to take seriously the propaganda material carried by UMNO
controlled media. They are self-serving. They support thievery and cover these
misdeeds.
Perhaps the 1.5% of the Felda children who made it to universities
and who went on to be doctors, lawyers and other graduates, read this English
article and can start narrating to their felda cousins. Tell them, you have
been duped and made use of by the Najib government. It may come to a surprise
to many of us, but the reality is, only 1.5 of the felda children made it to colleges and universities. We have been led into believing that many felda
children have succeeded.
The Felda settlers most of whom are Malays may not realise this. The
cost of living is going up . In part, and the people believed this-
the higher cost of living is caused by the imposition of GST. The government is
squeezing blood from stone.
Banks are closing many of their branches. Businesses are closing
down. Big retailers like Giant, Tesco and Aeon are also feeling the pain and they
are closing businesses and laying off workers. Many of these workers are Malay.
Maybe they are also felda children. In short, the economy is not doing well. We are talking about the real economy.
But the government is going around the country, telling lies that
the economy is good.
The government is doing a lot of red herring strategies. UMNO is
helping PAS to hold a mammoth rally in Kuala Lumpur in support of a bill
submitted by Haji Hadi. But the proposed bill has not even been debated.
In the past, the government of Najib was the opponent to any
attempts to islamise the country. So when people demonstrate in Padang Merbok –
against whom are they vehemently protesting?I am puzzled as many of you are too. The DAP is not the government.
The UMNO wolf is running with the PAS rabbits and hunting them at
the same time.
The gathering is nothing more than a union of Malay supremacy and Islamic
supremacy. It is a union of Malay and Islamic fascism. It has nothing to do
with the elevation of Islamic ideals.
Clearly it is an attempt by the Islamic groups and Malay thieves to
hide their criminal conduct and failures. UMNO will say the Malays who oppose
them are not Malay enough. PAS will say those who oppose them are not Muslim
enough. One party is doing ethnic blackmail, the other does spiritual blackmail.
Race and religious bigots do that.
Closer to home Felda has not been forthcoming to settlers. For years
they have not been transparent to settlers. Settlers demand to know how much their
land earned and how much was deducted. Felda has not provided clear statement
of accounts. The settler seems to be weighed down by ever increasing debts.
Felda has no money to pay for the Fresh Fruit Bunches settlers send
to mills. Felda postpones payment to the following month. It always owes the settlers
a backdated payment of half a month. That could be RM1500-Rm2000 per month.
After 3 years , replanted trees produced fruits and they produced
income. How much of this income go to reducing the advances and loans taken by
a settler? Generally speaking, a settler on average owes felda, RM120,000. How will
the settler pay? Can they ever settle their debts?
In June 2012, Felda listed its subsidiary, FGV. The retail price was
RM4.55. At that price, the earnings on the 2.1889billion shares sold, were almost
RM10 billion. Where did the money go? Shahrir Samad, the new Felda chairman
tells us, the money went to so and so. But he also revealed that he did not know
where some RM4 billion of the money raised went to?
Was Shahrir Samad appointed to do the janitorial work of cleaning up
the mess Najib committed with Felda? Now that the business has been shelved off
to FGV, along with that, also went the operating costs of running the business.
FGV a listed company now spends money on running the business. Felda saves money.
In return, Felda( the main body) which is owned by the government,
receives passive income as an investor. FGV pays rent of around RM500 million plus
15% of the operating profits from plantations business. Probably they get
around RM 700-800 million a year depending on the profits made by FGV. FGV has
been making losses and this can mean the earnings or returns to Felda are decreasing.
Felda still needs around RM1 to RM1.2 billion to manage the social obligations
on the 317 felda settlement. They need to pay administrative costs, make loans
to settlers, and increase the quality of life of settlers. If they take in
RM700-800 million a year and needs to spend Rm1.2 billion a year, they are
still short of RM400 million at least. Where will they get money?
They can get injections from the government. But that would be
unfair. Why should tax payers money be spent of felda settlements when Felda
fails to get enough money because of their incompetence and stupidity? We
cannot go on subsidising incompetence and stupidity.
One of the main purposes of the upcoming Felda Congress is to increase
public awareness of the massive corruption and embezzlement that is taking
place in Felda. Because of the sheer size of Felda and its numerous business deals,
the structure of the business allows unscrupulous people to bleed money from
its business operations.
The Congress should;
ReplyDelete1) come up with a summary simple enough for the settlers to understand that their well-being is in serious danger.
2) train speakers to explain in a language that the settlers could be convinced.
3) pre-empt BN's possible strategies which would normally be revealed at the last minutes before the elections. Rumours are that the govt would pay RM25k to each settler as a gesture to ease their predicament. Settlers need to be explained how the handout would not help them in the long run.