Felcra to channel resources to boosting country's food security, says Zahid
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 — State-owned Felcra Berhad's immediate focus will be to enhance food security in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said today.
Zahid said the corporate organisation, which began as a statutory body dubbed the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority, possesses sufficient facilities and financial resources to undertake the initiative.
"The government needs to be supported so the excessive import of food can be replaced by the production of food from Felcra, or any other agencies or private and commercial farms.
"Reducing food imports would reduce foreign exchanges and stabilise the foreign currency balance,” he said during the Felcra briefing session at their headquarters here.
Zahid — who is also the rural and territorial development minister — said this new direction would be implemented under Felcra's "Transformation 3.0” programme.
In a press conference afterwards, Zahid highlighted that Felcra has a land capacity of more than 200,000 hectares and companies covering various fields of agro-economy activities.
He said these resources can be channelled into the production of main crops or vegetables to increase the supply of meat or protein, in addition to producing ingredients for animal feed.
"In addition, we also have to look at the downstream industry from the nine Felcra palm oil mills across the country,” he said.
In a related matter, Zahid said his ministry is looking into reports of leakages from the Auditor-General's Report as announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yesterday.
"There are not many leaks; the top management meeting of the ministry has addressed the matter and it has to take serious steps to overcome the findings of abuse of authority and every matter,” he said.
Yesterday, in a post-Cabinet meeting, Anwar told ministers to take seriously and scrutinise all remarks made in the most recent Auditor-General’s Report on the expenses, leakages, and matters of non-compliance with conditions and regulations involving their respective ministries.
