ANAK to meet state Sultans to put brakes on land transfer

National Felda Settlers’ Children Association (ANAK) will meet Sultans of various states in a bid to seek their intervention to stop state Felda plantation lands from being mortgaged to Felda Global Ventures Holding (FGVH) which will is going to be listed amid strong opposition.

ANAK chairman Mazlan Aliman said beginning next month, his group and the Save Felda Movement will seek audience with the Sultans, during which a memorandum proposing how to utilise 360,000 hectares of land for the benefit of the people and for generating new revenue for the state will be handed over.

Last month, ANAK said Pakatan Rakyat-led states in Kedah, Kelantan and Selangor had not agreed to sign any land deal transferring ownership of lands in these states to the proposed listed company FGVH.

Under the listing plan, Felda Plantation would mortgage all its 360,000 hectares of lands to FGVH for 99 years.

Earlier, the Kelantan state government announced the forming of a legal panel to advise it on the state's acquisition of 55,000 hectares of lands belonging to Felda Plantations.

State exco member Husam Musa had said that the move was to ensure justice prevailed for settlers based on the earlier agreement where Felda Plantation was the biggest shareholders.

“Once this takes place, some 8,000 new settlers will be given four acres each,” he said.

Signature drive

Mazlan also expressed ANAK's full support to the signature drive by the Felda and Native bureau under PKR, targetting 100,000 signatures to protest the FGVH listing. The signatures would be handed over to the prime minister on March 30, 2012.

“In fact, if this still fails to soften the prime minister’s stand in going ahead with the listing plan like what was said by Ahmad Maslan [UMNO information chief], a gathering will take place in April," warned Mazlan, adding that thousands of Felda settlers would be mobilised to present a memorandum to the Agong at the national palace.

"And remember, the BN government’s fate is fully dependent on the 55 parliamentary and 92 state assembly seats in the hands of Felda’s settlers,” he stressed.

Felda settlers had last week scored a temporary victory after Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF) cancelled its extraordinary meeting scheduled on February 22 following the Kuantan High Court’s decision to grant three interim injunctions to eight settlers, which also included the barring of any discussion and decision to be taken on behalf of KPF on the disposal of shares belonging to Felda Holding and its ten subsidiaries to FGVH.

However, Felda chairman Isa Samad insisted that the listing would go ahead with the setting up of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to facilitate the listing, which ANAK had vowed to fight to the end.

-Harakahdaily