Sherlock Holmes state councillor
Exco man stakes out remote area and finds fertilisers being hoarded
MELAKA: A Melaka exco member did two days of surveillance before discovering that hundreds of bags of fertilisers were being hoarded deep inside a government-owned plot of land instead of being distributed to farmers.
Agriculture, Entrepreneur Development and Agro-based Committee chairman Norhizam Hassan Baktee said he received a tip-off from a villager that the subsidised fertilisers which were meant for padi farmers in the state were being hidden inside a container.
He said the villager claimed that a government official had shortchanged the farmers by illegally storing the bags of fertilisers without distributing them.
He said the fertilisers, which belonged to state Farmers Organisation Board (PPK), were part of the federal government’s fertiliser scheme managed by the previous Barisan Nasional government.
The fertilisers should have been distributed to the farmers.
“The scheme was meant to aid padi farmers and the fertilisers cannot be sold for profit or for personal use.
“The fertilisers were probably being stashed before they are sold to a third party,” he said yesterday.
The fertilisers were probably being stashed before they are sold to a third party. Norhizam Hassan Baktee
Norhizam sought the help of a friend, whom he said knows the area as the site could only be reached by 4WD vehicles.
He also brought police with him to the site yesterday.
“However, we were unable to open the container locks. We will leave the next course of action to the police to retrieve the items inside the container and investigate the matter,” he added.
However, they managed to access a shack at the site where they found 100 bags of fertilisers.
He said the container was placed on government land without permission.
“There are two man-made ponds at the site where we believe the trespassers have attempted to turn into exotic freshwater fish farms for commercial purposes,” he said, adding that he lodged a police report on the matter.