RM118,000 of taxpayers' money to adorn gov't cars

AUDIT REPORT The Johor state government spent over RM118,000 for sports rims and other accessories on state-owned cars, according to the Auditor-General's Report 2013.

This, the report said, was based on an audit of 13 of 81 vehicles belonging to the Johor secretariat office for the period of 2011 to 2013.

"The audit found the state secretariat office (administration) spent a total of RM118,686  for sports rims, leather seats, repainting of cars, change of bumpers, CD/DVD players and other accessories," read the report.

For the same period, the report said a total of RM570,797 was spent for recovery maintenance while RM122,804 was spent for preventative maintenance.

It criticised the high maintenance cost of the 13 Perdana V6 executive vehicles are between seven to 13 years old, and no longer economical to maintain.

The report pointed out the maintenance cost of the vehicles between 2011 and June 2013 ranged between 39 percent to 95 percent of their original buying price.

 

In response to this, the state secretariat office's management said it will dispose of vehicles older than eight years.

 

In total, RM2.78 million was spent for maintaining the 81 vehicles.

The report also pointed out six vehicles received a change of tyres as frequent as one month to 12 months while four more vehicles were tinted repeatedly between 2011 to June 2013 amounting to RM14,240.

The report described this as being "too frequent".

Likewise, it found the 35 instances where the vehicles were filling up on petrol too frequently within a time frame of between one minute to 94 minutes, totaling RM8,937.

The second series of Auditor-General's Report 2013 was tabled in Parliament today.

Beginning last year, the report has been divided and published thrice a year instead of once a year.