THE Felda Global Ventures Holdings Berhad (FGV) board executive committee today denied that the firm experienced losses amounting to hundreds of millions of ringgit as alleged by its suspended CEO Zakaria Arshad.

The committee, which heads FGV’s board of directors, denounced allegations made by Zakaria, who said on Tuesday that the oil palm firm went ahead with plans to invest £100 million (RM550 million) in Felda Cambridge Nanosystems Ltd (FGV CNS) despite the RM117 million loss it accumulated over the past four years.

In a statement on the company’s website today, board executive committee chairman Omar Salim said the £100 million expansion plan was never presented to the board “as alleged in the news article” quoting Zakaria’s statement.

Omar also denied FGV CNS experienced a loss of RM117 million within the four years.

“FGV took over FGV CNS in December 2013 and the losses incurred from 2014 to April 2017 were £5 million (RM27.5 million), being a startup company at products development stage.”

“On another point in the same article, contrary to what was quoted by Zakaria, the plan to invest RM300 million in acquiring a 30% stake in a creamer factory was never approved by our Investment Committee (IC) as the accretive value of the venture to FGV and its synergy with FGV’s downstream business could not be ascertained,” he said.

Zakaria, CFO Ahmad Tifli Mohd Talha, trading chief executive officer Ahmad Salman Omar, and FGV subsidiary Delima Oil Products Sdn Bhd senior general manager Kamarzaman Abd Karim were suspended on Tuesday pending an internal audit over RM47 million in alleged irregularities in payments owed by Afghan firm Safitex.

The firm is being investigated by the MACC for corruption and abuse of power, with officers confiscating thousands of documents from Felda’s headquarters on Thursday. – June 10, 2017.