Sharing a few stories…
The hawker: Cash strapped, TV, handphone
I have a friend that always complained on how tough life is, and how difficult it is to make ends meet. He is a hawker, his wife the helper, and has three kids.
Some hawkers are rich, but he is not… I am not really sure why. A couple of years ago, his eldest son finished Form Five, came out to work, got his first pay… and the first thing they did was spending most (if not all) of the salary to buy a new TV.
My friend is still crying on how tough life is… but he got a new company now, with his dear son complaining just about the same thing.
Last I checked, the son use a handphone that is five times more expensive than mine.
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Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional Malaysia (PTPTN) has submitted the names of the 200,000 loan defaulters to the Immigration Department to stop them from leaving the country.
The move to ban loan defaulters from travelling abroad was taken after PTPTN’s previous measures to recover the loans including publishing their names, blacklisting them, taking them to court and imposing higher penalties brought little success.
This action should work against defaulters that want to travel (because of work or vacation), but I am not sure how many people are actually affected with this new rule… perhaps just 10-20% of the total numbers.
Frankly, PTPTN should up their ante to tackle this issue. Taking the loan defaulters to court should work well, and it should be enforced systematically… making sure that nobody would escape from the hook. The defaulters will start to take the matter (repaying loan) seriously if they know that they would be in deep trouble if they failed to do so.
PTPTN can also work with other agencies to snap the defaulters. This travel-barred is a good start; they should also cooperate with EPF, LHDN and private banks etc. to make life difficult for the loan defaulters… the defaulters could (and should) be barred from taking other loans (house, cars, credit cards) and having their EPF deducted as loan repayment.
Most of these people do have a job and can afford to repay the loan; if they are indeed unemployed or for some reason could not make the payment at the moment… they should apply for a postponement of repayment or other options depending on the circumstances.
There is no point trying to raise the conscience of the loan defaulters… they probably don’t care or else they would have started paying their loans at the first place. Stern actions would work much better.