It is heartening to note that the deputy prime minister is so confident that by merely bringing urban infrastructure to Felda settlements they could be turned into economic growth centres. Unfortunately, for such development to take place, the necessary pre-requisites of necessary economic and social institutions must be in place. With respect and regrettably this is not the case.

I was the lead sociologist in a United Nations Development Program's social impact assessment study of this very area - Mempaga in Bentong - in 2001-2. The report of our findings suggest that the situation on the ground was far from conducive for such growth centres to be established for many reasons, that obviously cannot be taken up here.

Indeed, if our report has now been read - this had not been done till 2005! - one of the main obstacles is the fact that the settlers are not involved in the decision-making process because the management runs Felda settlements rather more along the lines of plantation management (estates), than as the viable modern agricultural communities they were intended to be at their inception.

It was for this reason that the government move to 'list' Felda settlements was widely welcomed because it would certainly also have involved restructuring the power structure to enable settlers to have a stake in the management. Such a possibility was also highlighted by the second and third generation settlers who are increasingly marginalised from the profits of the many Felda subsidiaries.

But unfortunately, the entire 'listing' exercise was put on hold without any reasons being given. On the basis of my research on Felda over the years, I can safely say that the main problem here appears to be the limited, or even lack of, capability and capacity among the personnel to undertake such a restructuring exercise.

In all humility, however, I can attest to the fact that there are a few local development planning consortiums who could undertake such restructuring without much difficulty. The 'problem' may be that they are mostly manned by non-Malays and expatriates but this could be easily overcome by appointing 'counterpart' bumi/Malay staff in the context of a training exercise. Moreover, such consortiums would be for short periods of a maximum of one year in the first instance.

It is my fervent hope that the 'listing' will be reinstated at this time when 9th Malaysia Plan proposals are being implemented. There is no question that this should be done without further delay.