Buyers of national car Proton Wira, outraged at being made to pay higher prices despite booking the car at lower figures, have registered their displeasure with the Workers Consumer Movement (WCW).

Secretary-general of the organisation, Mustafar Maarof said he has received many complaints that under distributor Edaran Otomobil Nasional's new terms, buyers have to fork out between RM2,000 and RM3,000 more than the amount required to when they had placed their orders.

"The affected are mostly civil servants who have to apply for government loans, which need two to three months to approve. When they finally received their loan approval after waiting for months, they are now told that they have to get a higher loan because the price for a Proton Wira has been hiked," he said.

"It is totally unfair of EON to raise the prices and force buyers to pay at the new prices when they had booked the car as early as December 2000 at a much lower rate," he told malaysiakini today.

EON is the country's sole distributor of the national car Proton, which is manufactured and assembled by Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd. There are 11 models under the Proton stable, which include the Saga, Iswara, Satria, Perdana, Tiara, Putra, Wira and the latest, Waja.

Mustafar said he had received about four complaints a day for the past week and is expecting to get more.

"Most of the buyers are from the lower income group," he added.

Mustafar said that if EON persists with the new procedure shortchanging buyers, all saving and exemption clauses in the sales agreement will be considered invalid because buyers were not informed of the new terms.

"We urge EON to maintain the old booking price agreed to by both buyer and seller or else it will definitely be a breach of contract," he added.

Proton's terms

EON's customer service officer Richard Usha when contacted said that the new price, which is higher by between RM1,400 and RM3,000, depending on the engine capacity, was announced by Proton on Jan 31.

"We had no choice (but to enforce the price hike). The new terms were issued by Proton on Jan 31. We informed the public through the mass media (about the price increase), which also affects buyers who booked at the old price," he said.

Mustafar said that WCW, the consumer arm of the Malaysian Trades Union Congress, was briefed by Proton's chief executive officer Tengku Mahaleel Tengku Ariff about the price hike during WCW's official visit to the factory in Shah Alam on Feb 21.

He said Mahaleel had told the group that it takes about four months to manufacture a Proton Waja.

Yet, Mustafar said, WCW had received complaints of Waja buyers having to wait seven to nine months for their cars.

To this, Usha said, "As far as Proton Waja is concerned, we understand that buyers have to wait as long as nine months but what can we do when we have an overwhelming booking of 1,000 cars per day nationwide?"

The problem lies with Proton, he added, as it cannot produce enough Waja units to keep up with the demand.