Felda refutes taking over settlers' land with conditional loan write-off agreement

KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) has refuted the allegation that they would take over the settlers' farming land once they signed the conditional loan write-off agreement.

Felda general manager Datuk Amiruddin Abdul Satar said there were some misunderstandings about the matter and the agreement was actually fair to both parties as it would see 80 per cent of the settlers' bad debts be written off.

"Many have not received proper explanations, hence the misunderstandings. Some even go to the media to complain...we are not taking over their land, we only take over the management of the plantation in line with Felda's objectives and aspirations to manage the farms in an integrated manner.

"Within the past week, we have met with settlers in several states to give some explanation on the agreement to enable them to get the accurate picture of the matter," he said in a virtual media briefing today.

However, he said Felda is currently facing some restrictions to give the explanation to all 92,000 settlers nationwide as many states were under Phase Two of the Movement Control under the National Recovery Plan, apart from Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) in force.

Amiruddin said the settlers would be given a month, rather than 14 days, to decide whether or not to sign the agreement.

He said at least 20 per cent of the settlers had agreed to sign the agreement which will see them having to fork out only RM200 to RM300 a month to repay their debts compared to RM800 to RM1,000 previously.

"On average, the debts of the settlers are between RM80,000 and RM100,000, but some have over RM200,000, which were accumulated over the past 20 to 30 years.

"Most of the settlers have given a positive response...but we understand that many were still unclear about the agreement as they have yet to receive any explanation," he said.

On July 7, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that the government had agreed to write off part of the Felda settlers' loans totalling RM8.3 billion as an initiative to revive the 65 years old organisation.

In a statement yesterday, Felda said the write off is based on the condition that the settlers must send their harvest or hand over the plantation management to Felda.

It said the settlers will still be allowed to run their farms provided they send their full harvest to Felda and that they are also required to pay the monthly loan instalments in full every month and implement farm management according to the methods, standards, good agricultural practices and standard operating procedures set by Felda.

-- BERNAMA