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‘Debt disaster’ will derail recovery this year, says Anwar

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Strategy needed to ease burden of rakyat beyond PM’s ‘cronies and kleptocrats’, says PKR chief.

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Free Malaysia Today
Anwar Ibrahim says the people have no control over their fate and are seeking more loans and being condemned to debt traps.

PETALING JAYA:
The record level of household income debt-to-GDP ratio, which has hit 93.3% at the end of 2020, is very concerning, says opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

He said the previous record of 87.5% in June 2020 at the height of the first wave of Covid-19, was already a dangerous mark.

In a Facebook post today, Anwar said the bulk of the liabilities was tied to homeowner and vehicle debts due to the effects of the movement control order implemented by the government, as well as “dangerously high” credit card debt.

He said the people did not have any control over their fate as they were forced to seek out more loans and take on more debt, thus condemning them to debt traps.

Citing the International Monetary Fund’s call for developing a new policy to deal with inequality, the PKR president said this showed that the poor and those in lower socio-economic classes were most affected.

“This debt disaster will derail any hopes of Malaysia making an economic recovery in 2021, let alone in the next few years if it is not confronted immediately,” Anwar said.

He urged Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to direct his economic team to think of a new strategy in easing the burden of the rakyat, beyond his cronies and kleptocrats.

“Traditionally, in our system of democracy, a leader, lacking faith and the mandate of the people, would step aside to retain a modicum of his dignity,” Anwar said.

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