Azhar in talks on helming Synergy Perdana

PETALING JAYA: It is confirmed that Synergy Perdana is in talks with former Sime Darby Plantations Sdn Bhd managing director Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid for the latter to helm the consortium.

“Talks are still in the early stages. (As at press time) Azhar still has not been officially offered by the Synergy Perdana board,” sources said.

Set up in February last year, Synergy Perdana is a consortium represented by the country’s top agricultural land authorities – Federal Land and Development Authority (Felda), Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Felcra) and Rubber Industry Smallholders’ Development Authority (Risda).
Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid

Sources said the consortium was not a “merged entity” of Felda, Felcra and Risda, but instead was set up to identify and undertake strategic partnership projects closely linked to the upstream and downstream activities of the three agencies.

“For Azhar to be singled out as a potential candidate to steer Synergy Perdana came as no big surprise given his exemplary work at Sime Darby group,” sources said, adding that Azhar was in fact well versed in the plantation sector.

To recap, Azhar was asked by the Sime Darby board to hold the fort for the conglomerate in the first two months as acting president and group chief executive (GCE) after its then GCE Datuk Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid was asked to take a leave of absence in May last year following massive losses suffered by the group’s energy and utilities division.

Azhar resigned from Sime Darby last September when Datuk Bakke Mohd Salleh of Felda group took over the acting president and GCE in July.

Meanwhile, a source close to Synergy Perdana claimed that: “Despite being perceived as a loose consortium with no clear-cut plans on board, we are on track and progressing well.”

Furthermore, the Government wants the three agencies to share their resources and assets in efforts to reduce shortage and wastage in overlapped activities such as milling, transportation, research and development, seedling production and fertiliser usage and purchasing, technology transfer as well as training and human resource development.

The source said Synergy Perdana would therefore need a strong calibre and charismatic person to steer the consortium in the right direction and “make it operate as a successful government-linked company (GLC).”

The source noted that Synergy Perdana which fall under the supervision of the Prime Minister’s Department and also the Rural and Regional Development Ministry, had earmarked several large-scale downstream projects linked to oil palm and rubber via recommendations by a team of local consultants.

“The plans are already there but all are subject to approvals from various multi-stakeholders,” the source added.

The areas of interest include production of super seedlings, bio-organic fertilisers and food-based products.Felda, Felcra and Risda will have to contribute RM100mil each to the paid-up capital of Synergy Perdana. So far, it is confirmed that the three agencies have forked out RM1mil each as start-up funds to finance the strategic partnership projects.

Fertiliser projects would be the top agenda for Synergy Perdana. Currently the three agencies consume RM1bil worth of fertilisers annually and fertilisers account for about 30% of total production cost.

Felda group, for example, is already putting in place six compost plants, which used feedstocks like empty fruit bunches and palm oil mills effluent to produce organic fertiliser. Its technology could be shared and transferred to Felcra and Risda to set up similar plants.

Projects to be undertaken by Synergy Perdana would provide good returns to the targeted groups namely 112,000 Felda settlers, 235,000 Risda smallholders dan 95,000 Felcra smallholders.