Borrowers may face the music too

Borrowers may face the music too

 

Friday • February 29, 2008

 

Neo Chai Chin

chaichin@…

 

With more than 9,700 loanshark-related cases last year, and one in two cases of harassment affecting innocent parties, should the law be extended to penalise those who borrow from loansharks?

 

The Ministry of Home Affairs says it will consider this seriously after having previously rejected the idea and trying other measures to curb the problem of unlicensed money-lending.

 

The issue was revived by MP (Holland-Bukit Timah) Christopher de Souza, who cited the example of a borrower who gives a false address to a loanshark, causing an innocent party to get harassed. “If such a borrower abets such harassment, why not make his very act of borrowing an offence?”

 

Senior Minister of State Ho Peng Kee said the idea would be studied. Already, some borrowers fall within the law’s reach when, for instance, they get pulled in by loansharks to become runners.

 

To tackle the problem of wrongful harassment, those who change their home addresses on their Identity Cards (ICs) will have to furnish proof such as bills to show they are indeed living at that address. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, and the Housing and Development Board will also work together to get flat buyers and sellers to update the address on their ICs, said Associate Professor Ho.

 

Last year, 392 people were arrested for loanshark activities, almost 100 more than in 2006. Six syndicates that were smashed were believed to have had a combined pool of 2,000 debtors. Although the 9,762 unlicensed money-lending and harassment cases last year was a 4.5-per-cent dip from 2006, Assoc Prof Ho acknowledged the number remained “unacceptably high”.

 

Mr de Souza said a review of the Moneylenders Act could draw from laws against drug abuse and corruption, which have penalised both the supply and demand elements of the offences and succeeded in containing both crimes in Singapore.

 

Source: Today Newspaper