Penang replaces official cars with Toyota Camry units

Penang replaces official cars with Toyota Camry units
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Himanshu Bhatt, fz.com(contributor to theedgemalaysia.com)
Wednesday, 21 August 2013 16:09

GEORGE TOWN (Aug 21): The Penang government is replacing 15 official cars in its ageing fleet for state leaders, with new Toyota Camry 2.5 Auto units.

The current Mercedes Benz and Proton Perdana units, that have been operated to chauffeur the chief minister, assembly speaker, ten state executive councillors and three ex-officio members, have been in use for an average of 15 years.

Describing the decision as one that reflects prudent expenditure, state finance officer Datuk Mokhtar Mohd Jait said the specially ordered Camry units will cost a discounted RM113,700 each compared to government-approved market price of RM174,820.

The total cost of the 15 new cars will come up to about RM1.7 million. The cars are expected to be delivered by mid-November.

Mokhtar said the supplier, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd, is applying for tax-exemption for the cars from the federal government.

Speaking during a press conference at Komtar here today, he said the existing fleet has been incurring heavy maintenance and repair costs.

For the whole of 2012, the costs came up to RM383,000 for a total of 21 cars, and this year, until August, the state already had to fork out RM 301,238.

The highest maintenance cost so far this year, of about RM38,000, was incurred for the Perdana used for state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow, while a 17-year old Mercedes Benz 230E used for Deputy Chief Minister (II)Prof Dr P Ramasamy needed some RM30,000 over the same period.

The oldest car in the existing fleet is the 21-year old Mercedes Benz 200E now being used for state executive councillor Jagdeep Singh.

The Mercedes Benz S320 currently used for Chief Minister (CM) Lim Guan Eng and previously by his predecessor Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, has been in use for the Penang CM for the last 18 years.

Asked on the question of patriotism as the state has opted for a Camry, a Japanese automobile, instead of a national car model like Proton Perdana, Chow pointed out that the federal government recently also ordered a fleet of Honda Accord units, also from a Japanese car-maker.

He also stressed that the manufacturing of Perdana models has been halted and there are no other national models of the same category.

The three ex-officio posts that will have new cars are those of the state secretary (now occupied by Datuk Farizan Darus), state finance officer (Mokhtar) and legal advisor (Datuk Faiza Zulkifli).

The Pakatan Rakyat administration of Perak was the first government in the country to use Toyota Camry cars for such high-ranking official purposes when it made the order for 16 units in December 2008.

The brand new cars were however auctioned off by the Barisan Nasional state government soon after they took over administration of the state in February.