Brunei Resources has an excellent post up at his blog today and I have commented that it is the best post he has ever written eversince the blog came in operation. It adresses four key points in the issue of big debts among little people in Brunei.

1. The difference between how easy is to be in debt now, and how it was then.

2. The very summarised overview of the current Bruneian debt situation.

3. The extremely controversial issue of the nationally implemented personal loan restrictions

4. His justifications, as one of the people possibly responsible in the implementation of this restriction, speaking somewhat off the record.

Now this post, coming from Brunei Resources is extremely relevant since he is one of the few people responsible for such restriction.

I, and I'm sure a lot of other people too, have always thought that policies in Brunei, major or minor, are made in a somewhat predictable manner. First, rumours will start flying around, spread by word of mouth (of course the newspaper will not pick up on such things), then after perhaps a period of uncertainty, a speech/titah/sermon will be issued, confirming what people have already known.

After that, the government officials will clam up, refusing to comment further, and the public will be left to their defences figuring out what went wrong. Now sometimes, people would get the point of said policy, which is in this case, personal loan restrictions. They would go,

"Awu ah, ehhh, menyasal ku meloan banyak banyak atu, ani aku tia pulang mati kapisan membayar"

However, most would go,

"PALUI KALI EHHHH!!! Brunei ani sikit sikit ban, sikit sikit ban. Buduh kali urang atas ah. Baik ko rubuh bank atu! Suka hati ku wah kan meloan kah apa kah, bukan usin mu!"

It is a given. Not everyone will understand why such policy is implemented. However, most of the time it is because they are not informed of the bad effects of overloaning. They get most of the information about loaning from none other than the banks itself. They will gladly paint as pretty a picture as they can. They will tell you that your dreams are attainable, your beauty will not fade and your shit will not stink.

No one will sit you down and tell you, the bad, destructive side of loaning and owing the bank money. No one tells you the downward spiral.

Families have been known to break up because of financial difficulties. Children unable to continue their education. People go into drugs tyring to escape from their problems. Crimes rise. So it is not a 'personal thing' anymore once personal debt problems become social problems. And social problems have costs – affecting the development of the country.

No one really tells you these (except for Oprah).

As much as I feel that the restrictions on personal loan to be relevant, I feel that there needs to be another step towards making it a fruitful action, that is, education. The policy is only achieving half of what really is the bigger picture – abolishing and maintaining the debts at bay.