Another 365 land settlers sue Felda, this time for RM175 million

by  Sherina Yusof

Another 365 land settlers in the Jengka area have filed a lawsuit against Felda at the Temerloh High Court, asking for RM175 million in compensation.

Their lawyer Sivarasa Rasiah said that this is the second lawsuit filed by the Jengka group. The first was in June, when 711 developers from 16 land settlement schemes - all within the Jengka area - had asked for RM344 million as compensation for under-payment over a period of 15 years (since 1995).

Sivarasa also said the basis for the new demand is that Felda had committed fraud and breach of trust in managing the grading rate (orkadar perahan gred KPG) in the palm sales.

"Today the developers are suing Felda for lying about the KPG with average of 18.5% when the reading on palm samples that were sent to three independent labs have shown that the KPG average is 31.5% and after balancing the developers believe that the average KPG is no lower than 27%. This shows that there is an 8.5% discrepancy with the one issued by Felda," Siva told a press conference.

Second 'fraud'

Siva stressed that this was not a small amount. By using the figure that is 8.5% lower, according to the 2008 price range, Felda would have caused each developer to lose RM250 per tonne. And if there were 10 tonnes per month, this meant that the settler would have lost about RM30,000 a year.

"Besides that, settlers are also saying that the Felda officers came and cut down so-called rotten palms at the rate of 200 kilograms per month but these were not returned to the settlers. Instead, they were sold at Felda factories," said Siva.

If computed at the rate of RM560 x 2.4, this would mean an additional loss of RM1,344 a year for each settler, and this had been going on for fifteen years.

"This mean that in the same period of 15 years, for both of the frauds, Felda would have caused RM175 million worth of losses to the settlers. Added to the demands of the previous 711 developers (RM344 million), Jengka developers have now demanded RM520 million from Felda," said Siva.

Negotiate

Also present at the press conference were two other lawyers representing the settlers Lateefa Koya and T Kumar, Chairman of Biro Hal Ehwal Felda Pusat Suhaimi Said, Acting Pahang PKR Communication Chief Ahmad Nizam Hamid, Kuala Semantan Assemblyman Syed Hamid Mohamad and the settlers.

According to Sivarasa, what had happened was clearly "fraud and a breach of trust" by Felda and as the judge in the Kemahang settlers case had said, Felda should protect the settlers, and not deceive them.

Meanwhile, Felda's Suhaimi Said said that this was not the biggest case he has seen. Previously, the Jengka group had filed a lawsuit on the same issue which involved 1,700 settlers. Neverthless, Suhaimi said he was confiident that the settlers would prefer to negotiate rather than to sue the body.

"Unfortunately, every time a representative of the settlers visit Felda headquarters, they were yelled at and accused of not being grateful. Although in this case, each settler losea RM700,000 in the KPG, TTS and other cases," said Suhaimi.

"If Felda returns back what is meant for the settlers, that would be better because they have sacrificed and contributed a lot to the country's economy and Felda's success all this while."

Source : MC