This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 23, 2017 - August 29, 2017
KUALA LUMPUR: Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) chairman Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad said he supports the view that public-listed Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd’s (FGV) directors should be free of any political influences.
Shahrir was responding to a question from the floor on Felda’s stand on the appointment of politicians to the FGV board, during a session entitled “Good Governance and Politics” at the International Directors Summit 2017 yesterday, in which he was a panellist.
“I agree that there should not be any politicians [on FGV’s board], but there are good politicians as well. People do ask me to be FGV chairman, but I want to see a situation where the Felda chairman is different from the FGV chairman,” he said.
He added that like any shareholder, Felda would like to reap the returns on its investments in FGV, in which the agency is the largest shareholder with a 33.66% stake as at March 22.
“What we want to see in FGV is that it performs, because we want to get our dividends. My explanation to the [Felda] settlers is very simply: FGV is the son of Felda and Felda being the father has given all its assets to be managed by the son. We don’t mind if the son has a better pay, a bigger house or a nicer car, because we expect our children to do better than us.
“However, we want them to perform, because all these assets that FGV is managing were our assets in Felda, so our unhappiness is when there are no returns from these assets.”
Also the member of parliament for Johor Baru, Shahrir said FGV should be commercially run, with the politics left to Felda. “I agree that FGV should be a commercial entity guided by profitability. There is no need for FGV to take care of the politics, because the politics i.e. the settlers’ interests will be taken care of by Felda.
“The settlers’ interests are paramount, because if the settlers are happy, it translates into votes for [the] Barisan Nasional as a consequence of good governance and good politics.”
He also hopes to see improvements and changes to FGV after the “unfortunate situation” concerning two of its top officers, but declined to elaborate further.
Shahrir, a former cabinet minister and currently the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club chairman, took over as Felda chairman from Tan Sri Mohd Isa Abdul Samad in January.
Last week, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested Mohd Isa, also FGV’s former chairman, in relation to the controversial purchases of two luxury hotels by Felda Investment Corp Sdn Bhd, wholly owned by Felda. He was released on bail when his five-day remand expired on Sunday.
In June this year, FGV’s then president and chief executive officer Datuk Zakaria Arshad was suspended along with three others, and given a leave of absence from June 20 while awaiting the results of an inquiry concerning deals under Delima Oil Products Sdn Bhd, an FGV subsidiary.
Zakaria has since claimed about corruption and abuse of power in FGV, which triggered MACC’s investigations into over 60 FGV officers. FGV shares have since been on a declining trend from RM2.13 on April 28 to RM1.62 yesterday, a 24% decline in less than four months.