PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli today cautioned that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak may incur the wrath of Felda settlers over broken promises, with the agency's projected accumulated debt of RM12.6 billion as of December this year.

The figure comes from Rafizi’s own analysis of Felda accounts, which he claimed was necessitated Najib’s and Felda chairperson Shahrir Samad’s silence over calls for the agency to table audited accounts for the financial years ending Dec 31, 2015, and Dec 31, 2016.

“As long as Felda and the federal government refuse to table the audited accounts for 2015 and 2016, my financial analysis will be the reference for the majority of the rakyat (which will) make it difficult for Najib to face their anger, particularly the Felda settlers.

“The best way for Najib to defend his promises to the Felda settlers would then be to table the audited accounts at the upcoming Parliament session,” he said.

According to Rafizi, Shahrir promised in February that Felda’s audited accounts would be tabled during the March parliamentary session, but he has since remained silent on the failure to do so.

The Pandan MP also claimed that the silence was an attempted cover-up of Felda’s situation, which could have political repercussions for Najib's administration.

To arrive at the RM12.6 billion projection, Rafizi used Felda’s audited accounts for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2014, as well as various media reports and parliamentary responses.

Among others, he cited Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Razali Ibrahim’s Aug 7 parliamentary reply, which stated that Felda had taken out a loan totalling RM2.62 billion from 2014 to 2016.

“This is taking into account the financial status of Felda and its subsidiaries, which had recorded losses since 2012, and the total group profit (currently) not expected to exceed RM1 billion a year.

“In this situation, I projected that Felda and its subsidiaries have not been able to pay off the principal debt, and only managed to cover the annual interest rates from 2015 to 2017,” he explained.

“Therefore, the current accumulated debt for the financial year ending Dec 31 2017 can be projected by taking the remaining total debt from the December 2014 audited accounts, together with new debts taken after the date,” he said.

Aside from the accumulated debts, Rafizi added that he would also issue daily explanations over the next week on Felda’s projected profits, losses, financial standings and other related figures.

These figures, he claimed, would provide a clearer picture on how Najib will find it difficult to fulfil his six incentives totalling RM1.6 billion to aid Felda settlers, RM1.42 billion of which was derived from Felda’s internal funds.

Najib, in a Felda Settlers' Day celebration speech on Jul 23, had said that 94,956 qualified settlers – with land managed by and products sold to Felda – are eligible to benefit from the incentives, which include RM5,000 in cash handouts.