Petaling Jaya, Feb 19- The average number of bankruptcy cases shot up from 1,631 persons per month in 2012 to 1,812 persons per month last year, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim said yesterday.
Citing statistics from the Malaysian Insolvency Department, Anwar said 16,306 people were declared bankrupt between January and September 2013.
“I anticipate that when all the data for 2013 are published, over 20,000 bankruptcy cases will be reported due to increases in the prices of goods and the cost of living, which resulted from the subsidy rationalisation programme,” he told a media conference today.
The last quarter of 2013 saw the federal government raising the price of diesel and RON 95 petrol by 20 sen, entirely withdrawing the 34-sen sugar subsidy and hiking the electricity tariff by a minimum of 15%.
Anwar said the Insolvency Department’s statistics also showed that the Malays had suffered the most from the slew of subsidy cuts,accounting for 48.4% of those declared bankrupt. Chinese made up 33.2% and Indians 14.1%.
“Most Malaysians, especially Malays, are faced with financial hardship due to the faster rise in living costs compared with the rise in their incomes,” he said.
“As a result, they have been forced to supplement their daily expenses either through personal loans or credit cards, which then exposes them to the risk of bankruptcy due to higher rates of interest offered by these loans,” he said.
He said they had been forced to take these income supplementary measures because their disposable incomes were diminishing, not because they had mismanaged their personal finances.
The rising cost of living has become a familiar subject of conversation in Malaysia since the government began its series of measures to trim the deficit in the national budget.
Anger against the price hikes culminated with a huge protest at Dataran Merdeka last New Year’s Eve, and the government has since halted a proposed hike in highway tolls and set up a committee to look into reducing the cost of living.
-FreeMalaysiaToday
