Washington  - The hugely popular cash-for-clunkers programme is yet again running out of money and will be forced to come to a sudden end on Monday night, the White House announced Thursday.

Nearly 2 billion dollars worth of deals have already been submitted by dealers in the few weeks that the programme has been running. Just 3 billion dollars was allocated by Congress.

Cash-for-clunkers gives consumers up to 4,500 dollars to trade in old petrol guzzlers for a newer, greener car. More than 457,000 vehicle transactions have already been logged in the system, the Department of Transportation said.

The cancellation comes as dealers complained of heavy backlogs in getting their government rebates. Only 145 million dollars has been released to dealers so far, largely due to incomplete applications being submitted, a senior administration official said.

"We're now slightly victims of success," President Barack Obama said of the delays in a radio interview earlier Thursday. "This is actually a high-class problem to have." (dpa)