BENTONG – Many people count their blessings for having a proper house to call home for the family. At the Lurah Bilut Felda settlement in Bentong, such blessings are nowhere to be seen as many of the agricultural residents have been denied this basic necessity for decades.
This is despite repeated promises by multiple politicians pledging to address the woes of second-generation Felda settlers here, who now once again urge candidates for the 15th general election (GE15) to act on their despondent living conditions.
One such disgruntled settler is Zainal Osman, 60, who showed The Vibes his home for over 16 years now – a haphazardly put-together dilapidated structure made of wooden planks and zinc sheets, liable to collapse at the hands of unkind weather conditions.
“I am a bit embarrassed to show (others) the state of my home, but people need to see how difficult our lives are here,” said the father of two teenagers aged 15 and 16.
“The ‘best’ times for us here are Hari Raya and during national polls. These are the only occasions when we will see politicians coming around to offer us help, but we have yet to see any improvements.”
Zainal, whose parents were first-generation Felda Lurah Bilut settlers, claimed that instead of offering aid, people from certain parties have shown up at his front door demanding that he vacate the area as he is “squatting” on government land.
“When I got married, I applied to the mosque authorities to let me build my home here. They approved (my request) and I have the papers to show it, but party people still come and try to get me to leave,” he said.
Promised housing accommodations now white elephants
Just a few minutes’ drive from Zainal’s home sits an abandoned housing project, Felda 2.0, launched by former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in February 2018.
The initiative was inaugurated when former MCA president Tan Sri Liow Tiong Lai was MP for Bentong. It is now an eyesore and sad specimen of a lost dream as the villagers who were supposed to move there have had to build separate shacks on their current land to accommodate their expanding families.
“They told me that my house is on government land. I told them (that) the government was voted in by me. It is supposed to care about me. If they chase me away, am I supposed to bring my family to live under a bridge?”
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Zainal requested that the party he was referring to not be named as he is worried about being the target of retaliation by them.
Focused on creating a Felda community that is smart and sustainable, Felda 2.0 was planned for Lurah Bilut since the site was opened in 1958 as the nation’s first settlement for agricultural land development programmes,
However, the initiative has apparently been left to stagnate as construction works allegedly came to a halt after Barisan Nasional (BN) lost Putrajaya to Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the historic electoral defeat of 2018.
According to another second-generation settler Mohd Zulkepli Abdullah Amlaki, 67, white elephant projects like this have fed the flames of settlers’ anger to the point where most have turned their backs on Umno, the linchpin of BN, after years of continued support.
“Lurah Bilut used to be a hardcore Umno area, but we now see that they are not serious in helping us second-generation Felda settlers,” he told The Vibes during a visit to the ditched project.
Even before Felda 2.0, we repeatedly asked the BN government for help. They never answered our pleas, but were ready to use Felda issues as fodder for the next national polls.
Zulkepli added that each of the 90 housing units under the programme was meant to be sold for RM90,000 when it was first launched in 2018. The price tag was unreasonable then and is even more so now.
“If low-cost homes can be built in the city centre, why can’t the government do the same for Felda settlers?” he lamented.
PN’s Bentong candidate wants to be the voice of affected people
As such, Perikatan Nasional’s candidate for the Bentong parliamentary seat, Datuk Roslan Hassan, is making the betterment of the Felda residence a key part of his campaign for the 15th general election (GE15) as he aims to improve living conditions in his hometown.
“I have noticed that Felda issues are rarely addressed by any Bentong MPs despite a good portion of voters (in Bentong) being from Felda areas.
“The problems that they (Felda settlers) are facing must be brought to Parliament and debated until there is a solution. If not, their needs will remain unmet,” he told The Vibes.
He added that if he manages to secure the Bentong federal seat, he intends to establish a housing development corporation specifically for Pahang in an attempt to ease the troubles faced by financially struggling citizens.
Noting that Felda Lurah Bilut has Malay, Chinese, and Indian settlers, he said that he is ready to work for all voters, regardless of race.
Roslan has his work cut out for him as the constituency faces a five-cornered fight, with Liow attempting to regain the seat after being bested by PH’s Wong Tack in the previous national polls.
Wong will now be contesting as an independent after being dropped by PH component party DAP for Young Syefura Othman. Another independent, Mohd Khalil Abdul Hamid, is also eyeing the seat.
Malaysians will head to polling stations on November 19, with early voting set for November 15. – The Vibes, November 9, 2022
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