A QUESTION OF BUSINESS | The snail’s pace reform at Felda’s listed star, which is not shining so bright right now, Felda Global Ventures Holdings or FGV, picked up some yesterday when it was finally announced that its former CEO Zakaria Arshad, would regain his position from Oct 16.

It was a situation of better late than never after a series of problems from June, from when it remained rudderless without a CEO for over four months, although an ex-plantation man was appointed chairperson more recently, about a month ago.

Zakaria was told to take a leave of absence together with three others on June 6 by then FGV chairperson Isa Abdul Samad. While the others had been reinstated, nothing was announced about Zakaria until yesterday, despite previous assurances that a decision will be made by September.

Such needless delay was compounded by the subsequent arrest and public humiliation of Isa by the MACC in August, in connection with corruption investigations in another Felda unit, Felda Investment Corporation, or FIC.

Isa (photo), who at that time had already stepped down as FGV chairperson and was appointed acting chairperson of SPAD, the important and powerful Public Land Transport Commission, was remanded for five days, and subsequently released on bail.

The late announcement of Zakaria’s reinstatement marks just one of a long period of mistake upon mistake at FGV with as much as seven-tenths of the value of the share from listing date being destroyed. It currently trades at around RM1.70 per share compared to RM5.30 at listing.

Isa had said on June 6 that it was a board decision for FGV CEO Zakaria to take an immediate leave of absence.

Zakaria hit back at Isa saying he had tried to stop hundreds of millions in investments by the company's board which he described as "ridiculous".

Amongst the investments, he said, were plans for a 100 million pound sterling (approximately RM551 million) expansion of Felda Cambridge Nanosystems Ltd, a nanocarbon company, which had already lost RM117 million in the last three to four years.

"Now they (the FGV board) want to expand, they need another 100 million pounds. To me this is ridiculous, we're a plantation company," he was quoted as saying by The Star.

The delay is all the more surprising considering that former cabinet minister and Pemandu (Performance Management and Delivery Unit) chief Idris Jala was appointed just two days after Zakaria’s suspension on June 6 to investigate the situation at FGV with the agreement of all major parties involved.

Idris’ investigation was quick. Prime Minister Najib Razak announced barely a week later that Idris’ report was ready and will be announced at an appropriate time. Najib said he also requested Idris to look into several steps and measures to solve the crisis.

"We are analysing all facts and the decisions would be best based on the three principles I have mentioned - according to company law, good governance and fair process," he said.

On Sept 8, three months after Zakaria was appointed, a former plantation man, Azhar Abdul Hamid (photo) was appointed chairperson of FGV. Azhar was once head of the plantations division at Sime Darby, until today the group’s main profit earner, and was acting CEO for a short period in 2010.

Ironically it was Felda Holdings managing director at that time, Mohd Bakke Salleh who took over his position at Sime Darby, his role then being reduced to special adviser to Bakke. He left and subsequently emerged at MRT Corp as CEO but quit in August 2014 over a construction site accident in Kota Damansara that claimed three lives.

His action at that time came under praise from various quarters for his courage and responsibility by assuming accountability for the accident and handing in his resignation, a rare thing in Malaysia. He subsequently became CEO of Syed Mokhtar Albukhary’s independent power producer Malakoff Corporation.

Talk was that Azhar was considered for the position of CEO at FGV ahead of its listing in 2012 but was passed up in favour of Mohammed Emir Mavani Abdullah, who was a director at Pemandu and during whose time FGV showed steep drops in the share price following very questionable decisions...