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AKARTA: Critics have slammed a decision by the Jakarta regional legislative council to include luxury cars in its budget (APBD).

City legislators announced plans to purchase, among others, a Bentley Continental GT and a Ferrari F430. A councilor from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Boy Benardi Sadikin, said the purchase was proposed by the council’s board of chairmen.

“The council desperately needs the cars because currently it is forced to rent cars to escort VIP guests,” he was quoted as saying Thursday by news portal kompas.com.

Prya Ramadhani, a councilor from the Golkar Party and chairman of the council’s household affairs committee, also said the purchase was proposed by the council and its secretary.

He added that the budget proposal was previously turned down, but somehow remained on the table.

Prya said it was declined earlier because there were too few visits to the city by VIP guests to justify the expenditure.

Council Secretary Hermanto confirmed that there was a Rp 2.5 billion allocation in the budget to buy cars.

“The cars will be used for sister city visits. To date, the cost of renting cars was covered by the council,” Hermanto said yesterday.

He added that although the budget had been ratified, it still needed to be approved by the Home Ministry. If the number of visits by VIP guests this year remained low, the purchases would be cancelled. — JP