I refer to the Malaysiakini report Apex court orders Felda to pay RM11 mil to settlers .

As expected, all the main newspapers carried this story on the Federal Court judgement against Felda in the cheating case involving settlers.

This is because it is a very important decision that has many implications.

First, it finally provides the settlers with an avenue to redress a bureaucratic administration that has unilaterally usurped and monopolised Felda’s decision-making powers and implementation process, this against settler ownership and the control ideology of Felda.

Some of us, on the basis of individual research undertaken on behalf of UNDP, had reported on the unfortunate experience of recommending reforms against many instances  of ‘pagar makan padi’ but regrettably these were never implemented.

It would therefore be tedious to repeat more details of our observations here.

What is more important is that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and the government should ‘get real’ and de-consruct Felda rather than giving it a blank cheque to continue its elitist empire- building activities against the interest of the majority of settlers.