Council under fire

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THE Hulu Selangor District Council came under fire from councillors yesterday after proposing a RM500,000 allocation for the maintenance of its vehicles under the 2010 budget.

Councillor Santokh Singh asked why the council wanted to set aside such a substantial amount for maintenance of its 59 vehicles.

“The fleet includes 21 lorries, 14 four-wheel drive vehicles, 21 cars and three heavy vehicles that need to be maintained and it appears that the council need to spend about RM1,340 per day on maintenance of all the vehicles.

“This includes petrol, repair of the vehicles, maintenance of tyres and others,’’ said Santokh during the full board meeting.

Santokh also expressed his dissatisfaction that the council vehicles were being misused by the staff.

He said the drivers had been using them for their personal use.

He claimed the drivers had been using the district council’s vehicles to buy lunch for themselves and the staff.

“They are using the vehicles for their own personal use even to the extent of taking them back home.

“How can the district council bear the fuel cost for such usage, which is among the highest under the maintenance budget. We want to cut the budget because we feel that it is inappropriate and a waste of public funds.

“Instead of maintenance, the funds could be used for patching up potholes, repairing streetlights and cleaning up dirty drains,’’ said Santokh.

Santokh and other councillors have agreed that there would be a special budget meeting next month on the issue before it was approved and submitted to the state government.

District council president Tukiman Nail said most of the council’s vehicles were more than 15 years old except for six that were below five years.

“Unlike other councils, we are providing garbage collection service except for a few areas

“This makes the maintenance of lorries very high compared to other local authorities.

“The state has made Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) as the sister council to help us. Recently, MPSJ gave us a Proton Saga and two four-wheel drive vehicles instead of disposing of them.

“We also have to repair these vehicles,” he said.