COMMENT | The Felda Global Ventures (FGV) is one of the finest plantation companies in the world. Correction: was. With an administration under Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, everything must be spoken in the past tense, precisely because there is no future, let alone a present.

Just a few years ago, FGV's profits surged to nearly RM982 million, as Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua rightly noted in Malaysiakini.

Yet within a whisker of a few years, the inbreeding that Najib's Umno had specialised in - this involves allowing only his alleged cronies and advisers - to gain from the juicy appointments and the projects began to go horribly wrong.

Isa Samad did not, and could not perform, literally and figuratively. And things immediately went south. To make matters worse, they went sour too.

Shahrir Samad was brought in from the cold to oversee the reform that is badly needed, given the importance of Felda regions, which include about 54 parliamentary constituencies and an almost 92 state constituencies, only to see the two Samads at loggerheads with one another.

Notwithstanding Najib's additional role as the head of a committee on agricultural affairs in the Prime Minister's Office, his added authority did not suffice. It didn't lend any gravitas to allay the brewing storm in FGV.

Debt of the Felda settlers

The two Samads refused to yield, and both are going for the jugular of each other, with the attendant effect that has spilled into an MACC investigation and the removal of FGV's chief executive officer and chief financial officer.

Meanwhile, the debts of Felda settlers are not forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of them are left to service the interest on their loans. With the FGV stock hovering at less than 50 percent of its original IPO, the farmers are further exposed to the vicissitudes of life.

If this isn't a pattern that reflects the decrepit management of Najib, then one doesn't know what is.

The unit in charge of transformation, which was parked under the Prime Minister's​ Department, has gone silent. As opposed to its outlandish outcry that the country was being transformed, FGV showcased the weakness that Najib inherited from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

In the case of Pak Lah, inbreeding through his boys on the Fourth Floor allowed national interest to fester.

Under Najib, the same inbreeding in the Fourth Floor and Fifth Floor, where Najib sits, are still continuing. Their interests precede all others in the country including FGV.

When their bad management festers, farmers and fishermen in FGV are expected to pick up the pieces on their behalf.

Be it Najib, the two Samads or his boys in the Fifth and Fourth floors, the administration has lost the plot.

RAIS HUSSIN is a supreme council member of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu). He also chairs the Bersatu Policy and Strategy Bureau.