Jakarta – The Jakarta city council has postponed plans to buy garbage trucks and other essential vehicles because the budget must be used to buy cars for councillors.

City secretary Fauzi Bowo said US$1.1 million (S$1.94 million) had been allocated in this year's city budget to buy eight garbage trucks, 10 pickup trucks for the public order office and 17 other vehicles. "But we'll have to postpone buying them as we need to cover the cost of the 55 Hyundai sedans for councillors and five buses for the council," he said.

Mr Fauzi said the purchase of Hyundai sedans and buses had been allocated in the revised budget last year, but the purchase could only be covered in the current budget. "The purchase of sedans was, in fact, a sudden decision, so we could not allocate the funds last year," he said.

Each of the 85 city councillors reportedly received 75 million rupiah (S$13,730) from the administration just after their inauguration in 1999. The money was supposed to be used as a downpayment on their vehicles. Each council member received a Hyundai sedan while the chairman, deputy chairmen and faction chairmen used official Toyota Corolla sedans.

Last month, the city councillors came under media criticism over what were described as "foreign junkets" at a time of economic crisis. Activists said the itineraries for the "study visits" to Japan and China showed that councillors had spent most of the time sightseeing.