Wheels

From The Star: State exco members will use newly-purchased Mercedes cars:

KUALA TERENGGANU: Terengganu executive councillors will go ahead and use the newly-purchased Mercedes E200 Kompressors although a Treasury condition says members of the administration can only use Proton Perdana executive cars.

Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said the government would stand by its decision to use the Mercedes as official cars for exco members and other state government officials.

However, Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad said Terengganu could have misunderstood the condition imposed by the Treasury regarding the type of cars it could purchase.

“There is a clause by the Treasury that members of the administration can only use the Proton Perdana executive cars,” said Shahrir in Putrajaya yesterday.“Even Cabinet stated that there were no changes to the conditions imposed by the Treasury that those in the administration, like me, can only have the Proton Perdana,” he said, adding that locally-assembled cars were meant for those who were not in the administration.

Later yesterday, Ahmad said the state government was willing to auction off all the 14 Mercedes E200 Kompressors if the Federal Government scrapped the use of the German-made cars.

“We will do it on condition that the Federal Government bears the maintenance cost of the national car fleet.

“If they (Government) tell us to dispose of the Mercedes cars we will do so, but the state government cannot go on absorbing the high cost of maintaining the Proton Perdana cars,” he said.

This was subsequently followed by The Star: No warranty claims on Perdana since October 2004:

PETALING JAYA: No warranty claims have been made since October 2004 on the Proton Perdana V6 that the Terengganu Government claimed to have spent more than RM100,000 to repair.

Sigh. Such is the nature of Malaysian politics. The politicians are restricted to buying the nationally made car that hasn't changed in 10 years, so the politicians go and get permission to buy imported luxury cars.