It goes without saying that the hire-purchase system lubricates the economy of the country and it has deeply revolutionised trade as it has opened up new vistas for more comfort and luxury goods flooding into our homes. The lower-income groups, even in their wildest dreams, would never have visualised enjoying such cosy life-styles. It has created a new trend and has altered our buying habits. Consumers are caught up in such a frenzy of materialism that they work assiduously to repay their debts. Some have furnished their houses from scratch with the hire-purchase system and have proved their credit-worthiness to the companies while others, more sly, pay only for a few months with the evil intention of evading. Nowadays with rapid technological innovations, our wants have become insatiable. The more we have, the more we want to acquire. We are caught into the web of hire-purchase. We work only to repay our debts.

Shocking as it may appear, sixty per cent of our households are deeply indebted, according to a recent survey. The hire-purchase system, once hailed as a blessing, turns out to be a bane. The days of our forefathers, who used to hide bank notes in a dark corner of the house to keep for rainy days are gone. Hardly has pay-day arrived that certain people become penniless. The euphoria of buying and acquiring more status-symbol goods has gripped them so much that they buy on impulse. They hardly realise the legal implications and sign the contract blindly. They want to be like the Jones. All their monthly meagre salaries go into instalments and they find themselves with nothing left for food, education, clothing and shelter.

Sleepless nights

Their basic needs are foregone. They borrow from Paul to repay Peter. Woe betide them if someone falls seriously sick in the family or if a breadwinner passes away in the course of their legal agreement. The debt-collectors, armed with a court-order, harass them day in, day out at their doorstep and amidst sneers and giggles of the neighbourhood the bad debtors are sued in a law-court. What was first conceived to be «not feeling the pinch» in the repayment of the instalments leaves a bitter taste in their mouths, without forgetting the sleepless nights they may have endured throughout. When they realise that they have been blinded by seductive advertising slogans in the media, they have already experienced the trauma of seeing their goods confiscated and of being dragged before a law-court for the settlement of the debt.

Philip LI CHING HUM