The Defence Ministry has defended its decision to rent Mercedes-Benz S500s and S400s for senior officers, saying regular budgets which could be accounted for were used.
Gen Worakiat Ratananant, permanent secretary for defence, explained the matter to a House committee scrutinising defence budget allocations as part of vetting the national budget on Monday.
He was responding to Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, who sits on the House committee and demanded an explanation to a claim the armed forces were spending large amounts on renting the vehicles for 36 senior officers.
Gen Worakiat said that under the ministry's old criteria, senior military officers would be provided with cars for use, but the criteria were later revised to give them travel allowances instead, like officials at other ministries.
A senior colonel receives 25,400 baht while a major general receives 31,800 baht and 41,000 baht is given to a lieutenant-general and a general, Gen Worakiat said.
He insisted that cars provided for the permanent secretary for defence, the deputy permanent secretary for defence and leaders of the army, navy and air force are not for personal use.
The vehicles are intended to support the work of the ministry, with systems for the command of operations to respond to urgent missions, Gen Worakiat said. Therefore, high-calibre cars are needed for this purpose and regular budgets are used to rent them, not clandestine ones, he said.
On Monday, Mr Somchai posted on Facebook that he wanted the armed forces to justify spending taxpayers' money on renting luxury vehicles.
The armed forces then sent him a letter explaining that the vehicles are intended as "command vehicles" and they are paid for by a regular budget requested from the Budget Bureau, Mr Somchai posted. He added that he has requested details on how many such vehicles were rented.