Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been urged to suspend Felcra chairperson Hamzah Zainuddin following revelations that the land development agency's chief has tens of millions of ringgit in assets.

Last Thursday, Perak Syariah High Court judge Hassan Basri Shafie ordered Hamzah ( photo ), 47, who is also the Ipoh Barat Umno division chief, to make payment within a month totaling RM11.2 million in cash and assets to his ex-wife Nooraini Abdul Rashid.

The divorce settlement involved RM1.2 million for mutaah (compensation for disgrace due to divorce) while the remainder would be given in movable and immovable assets (harta sepencarian) acquired by the couple during their 15 years of marriage.

DAP leader Lim Kit Siang, in a statement today, said Hamzah's wealth have raised "public queries as to the propriety of their sources, especially as Abdullah had pledged a clean, incorruptible, accountable and trustworthy administration".

"I am not asking Abdullah to suspend Hamzah as Felcra chairman because of his matrimonial problems, but because his great wealth and assets as revealed by the Syariah Court settlement...," he said.

Censorship in Bernama

Lim also took the state-owned Bernama news agency to task for attempting to censor the news report on Hamzah's divorce settlement.

According to the opposition leader, the national news agency dispatched a note to all local newspapers two hours after it filed its report on the court order.

It read: "Please do not (repeat) do not use Bernama item datelined Ipoh slugged 'Felcra chairman ordered to pay over RM11 million to ex-wife'."

"This is a gross interference with a free press, totally alien to Abdullah's call on the Barisan Nasional leaders to 'hear the truth'," said Lim.

Lim called on Bernama to identify and suspend the official who had directed the sending out of the 'kill' advisory.

He said that the news agency should conduct an inquiry on the matter and its report tabled in Parliament when it convenes for the first time on May 17 after last month's general election.

One-third of shares

The multi-million divorce settlement was the result of a suit brought by Hamzah's wife Nooraini after the Felcra chief divorced her in 1996.

Syariah High Court judge Hassan ordered Hamzah to pay his ex-wife a monthly RM2,000 for maintenance, RM1,500 for clothes and accessories and RM1,000 for looking after their four children for the 15 years that they were married, bringing the total to RM810,000.

He also awarded a total of RM396,066 to Nooraini, a former secretary, in salary arrears for 22 years after she resigned from her job when she got married.

Hassan also declared 63,192,858 shares owned by Hamzah in three companies as common property with his ex-wife, and gave him a choice to transfer a third of the shares to her or pay her RM10 million.

The court also ruled that Nooraini could keep two BMW cars, a Honda Civic and a house in Selangor's Subang Jaya as gifts.

History of corruption

Lim also lamented that Felcra - a government agency aimed to lift the socio-economic conditions of some 700,000 smallholders by consolidating and rehabilitating idle land for crop cultivation - has a history of corruption and abuses of power.

"There was the long-running case of the Felcra director-general charged for corruption involving RM40 million belonging to the agency, the long-standing ACA (Anti-Corruption Agency) investigation into the RM72 million Felcra scandal involving fertilizer contract...," said Lim.

"And in 1994, I raised in Parliament the catalogue of multi-million ringgit abuses of the Felcra tender and project development process cheating the Felcra smallholders of their rightful dues".