No state land offer for new Felda settlers, Dewan Rakyat told

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KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 (Bernama) — No state government has come forward in the last three years with any offer of land for new settlers of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda), the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Ahmad Maslan said the federal government was still waiting for such land after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had announced in 2006, when he was the deputy prime minister then, that Felda planned to recruit new settlers provided the state governments gave the land to the eligible people, particularly the hardcore poor.

He was replying to a supplementary question from Datuk Mohd Jidin Shafee (BN-Setiu) who had wanted to know whether the government planned to carry out recruitment of new settlers which was frozen in 1990.

On the question of whether the government had any intention of requiring receivers of land titles to take an oath of loyalty, Ahmad said 85 per cent of settlers supported the government.

Replying to the original question from Mohd Jidin, he said 73,807 of the 112,635 Felda settlers had received titles to their land.

“This is 65 per cent of the total number. Over the last five years from 2004, some 9,262 settlers have received land titles,” he said, adding that 3,066 of them were from Pahang, 3,535 (Johor), 688 (Negeri Sembilan), 264 (Selangor) 190 (Perak), 133 (Kelantan) and 1,386 (Terengganu).