I READ with disgust the story on the Terengganu government’s purchase of a Mercedes fleet to replace their existing fleet of Perdana V6, because the maintenance cost of one car is more than RM100,000.

It shows just how out of touch they are, that they do not know the right thing to do in this instance, and do not even seem to be aware that they don’t know. Let’s take a poll:

If you were in charge of making the decision on the state government car fleet, and you find that the cost of maintaining the existing cars is huge — more than RM100,000 per car — which of the following courses of action would you choose?

a) Know immediately that the RM100,000 maintenance cost for a Proton is unusual because you are a normal Malaysian with common sense; compare your state’s maintenance costs with other states and government departments also using the V6, and if a discrepancy is found, report the person in charge of maintenance to the relevant agency for investigation over possible misuse of funds.

b) If there are also other considerations for a change, understand that you are using the public’s money because you are a Malaysian who is not out of touch; run a transparent procurement process that defines clear criteria such as safety, maintenance frequency and cost, price of car and re-sale value, and include for evaluation all cars in the same class from multiple car makers, e.g., Proton, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, etc. Then, choose the cheapest model that meets the specified criteria.

c) Choose options (a) and (b).

d) Close the blinds to your office, shout “Eureka!”, do a little dance and plan to use this as an excuse to get everyone a Mercedes because you’ve always wanted one.

The public is not stupid.

Datuk Ahmad Said should not give us his ill-prepared excuses. It is not as though there are no other choices in the car market.

N.M.A.Kajang

Source: NST – July 25, 2008