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| Posted: 19 Jun 2012 05:52 PM PDT PAC gets yellow card for 'wasting time' S Pathmawathy 12:30PM Jun 19, 2012 Petaling Utara MP Tony Pua has questioned the Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) motives in re-evaluating its decision on probes into four financial scandals, and has renewed the accusation that this is a delay tactic. "I don't understand why the PAC can't just immediately set a date to summon the officers and management of the agencies and companies we want to investigate," he told Malaysiakini. "We've already discussed and agreed on the cases during our meeting on March 5. Why the need for another housekeeping meeting (tomorrow)?" The four matters involve close to RM9 billion of government expenditure: - The RM250 million government soft loan to the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project - The Highly confidential out-of-court settlement between Malaysia Airlines former boss Tajudin Ramli and Pengurusan Danaharta Bhd over his RM589 million debt - 1Malaysia Development Bhd's RM3.5 billion 'dubious' investments in Petrosaudi - The higher cost of constructing the permanent low-cost carrier terminal in Sepang, which has ballooned from RM2.2 billion to RM3.9 billion The meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning will debate whether the PAC should follow through its investigations, Azmi Khalid (right) had told reporters last week. This is because Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia had "advised" the panel to discontinue its probe into matters that are currently before the courts. This is contrary to Azmi's earlier assertion that committee is not "completely barred" from investigating the controversies. 'Start with three cases' Pandikar had expressed reservations about the probes into the NFC project and Tajudin's deal. However, the Pakatan MPs (right) on the bipartisan PAC had waved off the speaker's objections, explaining that the committee would only question government agencies on the disbursement of funds, which will not amount to sub judice. Pua said there is a possibility of "an intentional attempt to delay matters" in light of the looming general election, which must be called by April next year. "Why waste another meeting? Also, why can't we call others - KLIA2, 1MDB and Tajuddin - if he (Azmi) doesn't want to proceed with NFC? "Why is everything else stuck just because of NFC?" he asked  |
| FGVH IPO: Settler's Income Cannibalised Posted: 19 Jun 2012 08:44 AM PDT Felda Palm Industries Sdn Bhd (FPI) is a palm oil processing company which purchases from Felda Plantations as well as other oil palm plantation companies, and processes them into Crude Palm Oil (CPO) for sale to refineries, traders and other users. FPI is company where Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF) has a 64.7% effective stake. Based on FPI's latest available audited accounts, it made RM9.5 billion and RM204 million in revenue and profits respectively in 2010. More specifically, FPI sold 3.0 million metric tonne of CPO for RM8.1 billion during the year. However, based on the FGVH prospectus, FPI has been forced to sign a concession contract on 1 March 2012 with FGVH where all CPO produced by FPI, except a small quantity used by FPI's own subsidiaries will be sold only to FGVH. The above arrangement is clearly to enable FGVH to earn a margin from the sale of CPO to the final customers. FGVH adds no value to the entire process except to cannibalise part of the profits which would otherwise have been attributable to FPI. As highlighted in the FGVH prospectus, FGVH "resells all of this CPO to third-party customers, such as refiners and traders in Malaysia and abroad, to our joint ventures…" (pp 184) Assuming just a mere 5% margin in sales price earned by FGVH, it is in essence a loss of profit amounting to RM405 million to FPI. The biggest loser will hence be KPF which owns 64.7% of FPI but does not even own a single share in the soon-to-be-listed FGVH. KPF which is 70% owned by Felda settlers, with the balance owned by Felda employees, is the entity set up in 1980 to become a savings and investment trust for Felda members. Its intent was to give a fair opportunity to Felda members to take part in equity ownership of companies set up by FELDA. This is on top of the fact that 355,864 hectares of the Government's FELDA land previously managed by another KPF subsidiary, Felda Plantations Sdn Bhd, has been ceded to FGVH for 99 years. The transfer of the above land will boost FGVH profits by RM680 million annually based on 2011 financial performance. Hence it is clear that in order to inflate the profits of FGVH and the attractiveness of its shares to potential investors, the Government has sacrificed the interest of Felda settlers represented by KPF by robbing them of income which they've enjoyed all these years. We call upon the Government not to shortchange KPF and the FELDA settlers. The RM15,000 "durian runtuh" amounting to a total of RM1.69 billion does not even come close to the loss of income for KPF and the settlers for the next 99 years as a result of the above one-sided deals.  |
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