THE Pakatan Harapan administration is banking on a new business model for Felda to ensure the 61 year-old land scheme remains viable as its settler population changes.

Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali said Felda cannot depend on the current model, where each plantation scheme’s revenue is derived from a settler who works a four-hectare plot of oil palms.

“We cannot depend on the current model as it is a burden to the settlers and the government. We are creating a new model that will link these lands on a larger scale as this can ensure that these lands will be managed more productively at less cost,” said Azmin during his winding-up speech after tabling a white paper on Felda.

In his speech earlier in the day, Azmin said the new model would allow each four-hectare plot to be leased and joined together for form a bigger estate that can be better and more efficiently managed.

This would solve a common problem in the 317 Felda settlements of the first generation of settlers growing too old and infirm to work their plots. It is estimated that 80% of Felda’s 112,635 first-generation settlers are above the age of 60.

Settlers’ welfare groups have long complained about Felda’s lack of a legal inheritance system to determine how and whether a first-generation settler’s land is passed down to his spouse or descendants.

The new business model is the primary component of the PH government’s plan to fix Felda which has been plagued by financial troubles that began during Najib Razak administration.

The government has announced it is allocating RM6.23 billion in various grants, loans and government guarantees to resuscitate and transform the land development agency.

About a third of the allocation will go towards paying the interest that the settlers owe on replanting loans and income advances.

Another RM1 billion will be spent over four years to create new agricultural activities for the settlers and their families so that they are not wholly dependent on oil palm for income.

The administration is also spending RM250 million to complete building 4,794 abandoned housing units for second-generation settlers. – April 10, 2019.