Rashfa, a 26-year-old graduate in marketing doesn’t find anything wrong with credit card debt and borrowings from her parents. It’s a must for her. That’s because her monthly salary of Rf 6,000 doesn’t even cover half of the expenses she has to incur on her favourite DKNY fragrances, L'Oreal and Lancome cosmetics and regular shopping sprees on bags and shoes.
Rashid, 43 a Director General in the Government and father of 3 children isn’t the kind of person you would think could end up with a RF15,000 ‘lui loan’ from Bank of Maldives. He earns slightly over USD2,000 a month from his job and through rental income. But his regular ‘medical trips’ to Bangkok, weekend ‘masdhathuru’ and daily ‘coffees’ with his friends have left him with little choice. He now has over two thousand dollars of credit card debt and an outstanding ‘lui loan’.
My friend Ahmed 28, earns less than a third of what I earn. Yet, he has a brand new HondaWave 125, an iPhone and several other gizmos and gadgets that I cannot afford even if I had the desire to buy them. He financed his Wave from Sheesha and paid for his iPhone using his brother’s credit card. Its been two months since Dhiraagu disconnected his phone line after he accumulated a whopping Rf10,000 bill from his overseas calls to his girlfriend in Malaysia.
All debt aren’t necessarily bad. We all need to borrow for various reasons. But in a society that doesn’t have mechanisms for debt funded investments like buying properties, credit is used only to buy consumer goods and luxuries, leaving nothing but bills…and more bills. We hope that our incomes will increase enough to pay the bills. But with inflation edging up to almost double digits it cannot be counted on. For most of us, average wages, after adjustment for inflation, would in fact go down.
5 comments:
So very true. I too wonder how people afford these gadgets.
So is everyone in deep depth?
very true.ive also often thought about this, how people claim to be so poor and most of us own latest mobile phones (which we change every now and then) and the wave (which every one must have). I think this is more about trying to be acceptable in the society...trying to be 'cool enough' maybe.i dunno..they make fun of indians who seem to be so dhahi (they try to save every single coin they can)..and when these people go to trivandrum they will just say.. keep change (even if change is more than hundred rupees sometimes).they seem to forget how the were beggin welfare and gaasim for money, when they are in ran baazaaru.
*sigh* strange people we are.
This is an interesting topic, all of should look back over our shoulder and give a thought to the expenditure we make, our expenses are not infinite, and we should be able to save for our future,
vara thedhu vaahakae ingey.. no wonder people being so high standard.. dho.. keekkuraanee dho.. wants ves mihaaru vanee needs a badhalu vefa ehen v ma vaanee ehen dho.. well. they worth it all (if they afford it!! ) what else to say!! nice post!
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