ABU Bakar Taib feels that life as a Felda settler has been harder in the “new Malaysia”.

Since June, Abu Bakar and his neighbours said their monthly allowances from Felda have been arriving late.

They also said the price of oil palm fruits this season is lower compared with the same period last year and that the new government is not doing anything about it.  

When they ask Felda management, they are told that the late payments are due to the government transition after the historic 14th general election on May 9.

“They said it’s because there was no new chairman that the payments were delayed,” said Abu Bakar to nods from five of his neighbours in Felda Mempaga 3, a 20-minute drive from Bentong.

The six men in their 60s gathered at the local tea stall to tell The Malaysian Insight how life has changed in the three months since Pakatan Harapan took over Putrajaya on a wave of urban and rural support.

The 269 Felda settlements nationwide are bastions of support for the Barisan Nasional coalition and especially its Malay supremacist party, Umno.

In past general elections, BN would be able to garner up to 80% of the votes in these schemes which collectively have close to a million voters.

But in GE14, a sizeable chunk of Felda voters – between 20% and 40% – in each scheme voted for PH. This was enough to tip the scales in favour of PH and allow it to win 19 parliamentary seats in which the Felda vote was crucial.

PH, with the help of second-generation Felda settler groups, campaigned aggressively in these settlements and promised to solve a raft of issues plaguing the Razak-era programme.  

These pledges included reducing settlers’ debts and reviving abandoned housing projects and finding new sources of income for their second-generation children.

They also promised to clean up Felda and its subsidiaries, which have been at the centre of suspicious land and property deals.  

Transition problems    

Felda Mempaga 1, 2 and 3 were set up in the mid-1980s and many of their first-generation settlers still tend to their 4ha holdings themselves. 

Aziz, another settler from Mempaga 3, said the late payments disrupted his ability to pay his bills and provide for his family.

The payments are from a three-year loan that he and some 100 settlers from Mempaga 3 took out from Felda.

The loan provides a monthly allowance of between RM900 and RM1,200 while they wait for Felda to finish replanting their holdings with new oil palm trees, a process which usually takes three years.  

Most Felda settlers usually take out such loans at 6.2% annual interest as they are unable to earn an income from their holdings during replanting.

Felda Lurah Bilut settler Osman Ismail said because Felda is inefficient, replanting can take more than three years. If this happens, settlers take out another three-year loan.

Settlers usually receive their payments between the 23rd and 25th of each month.

But since May, Abu Bakar said the payments would be delayed to the first week of the next month. So, they received the May payment in June, while the June instalment was paid in July.

He said Felda officers blamed the late payments on the transition in leadership within the agency.

Former Felda chairman Shahrir Samad, a former BN appointee, stepped down shortly after May 9. His replacement, Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor was only appointed about two months later on July 27.

Lower bonuses and prices   

It’s not the just the late payments that have riled them. Aziz of Mempaga 3 said the RM450 Hari Raya bonus this year was lower than the RM500 in 2017.

“Everyone was supposed to get RM450. But I only got RM400. Where did the RM50 go?”  

Hashim of Mempaga 2 believes that former prime minister Najib Razak did more for Felda than PH’s Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Najib’s stature still looms large among Felda folk because of the fact that he is the son of Abdul Razak Hussein, the country’ second prime minister who started Felda.  

Najib, he said, boosted the market price of fresh fruit bunches during the budding season from May to September when trees produce between one and two tonnes.

“This season, the price is about RM430 per tonne. So, if you harvest two tonnes you only get RM860,” Hashim said, adding that this was gross revenue.  

They still have to subtract the cost of labour and transport which is RM80 for workers and RM110 for the lorry.

One harvest will net a settler an average of RM670. Since there are two harvests per month, that translates into a monthly income of about RM1,340.

“During Najib’s time last year, we could get RM600 for our fruit bunches, so that’s an extra RM200 per month. I believe he boosted the prices,” said Hashim. – August 9, 2018.