KUALA LUMPUR: Felcra Bhd confirmed on Saturday (Aug 10) that there has been no sale of the company’s oil palm fruit processing factories as claimed by some parties, and that they are still operating as usual.
Felcra chief executive officer Datuk Idris Lasim said the company's management also confirmed that no proposal to sell such factories had been submitted to the Board of Directors for approval.
"The management of Felcra Bhd also denied any allegations on social media linking the Felcra chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub with the sale of the factory to any party," he said in a statement on Saturday.
He said there are five oil palm fruit processing factories that are fully owned and managed by Felcra, namely the Perak Seberang Palm Mill in Perak, the Maran Palm Mill in Pahang, the Sungai Melikai Palm Mill in Johor, the Bukit Kepong Palm Mill in Johor, and the Felcra Palm Mill Nasaruddin in Perak.
On Friday (Aug 9), the media reported that Ahmad Jazlan denied allegations that he had sold a Felcra factory to a non-Bumiputera company and was ready to be investigated.
Ahmad Jazlan also challenged the party making the accusation to report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
The accusation was allegedly made by Bersatu information bureau committee member Badrul Hisham Shaharin, better known as Chegu Bard, earlier, and he repeated it during the Nenggiri state by-election campaign in Sg Asap on Friday.
Chegu Bard was quoted as claiming that there was an attempt to transfer a factory owned by Felcra located on land owned by the state government to a non-Bumiputera company.
Idris said Felcra will continue to serve the community and ensure that the interests of all parties involved are always prioritised in order to strengthen its position in the agricommodity manufacturing industry and further contribute to the socioeconomic development of the country as a whole.
In the statement, Idris also said that Felcra is a corporate company wholly owned by the Minister of Finance (Incorporated) and is under the supervision of the Rural and Regional Development Ministry.
It carries out several main activities in its business that focus on rural development, namely farming through land consolidation and rehabilitation programmes and developing land commercially and venturing into the field of agro-food.
After being corporatised for 27 years, it has managed to distribute more than RM8.11bil in profit to nearly 107,000 participants throughout Malaysia. — Bernama
