Pay up or No Exit!

Unemployable Unemployed Graduates?

I read with interest that out of 700,000 names on the black-list of the Malaysian Immigration Department, some 85,000 or 12% of them are graduates  who had defaulted on their PTPN or study loans. That means that they will be stopped at any immigration exit points whether at airports, roads,ports or rail and cannot leave the country's borders and shores until they pay up pronto.

While the government is doing its best to get the loans repaid through one-off discounts or a periodic payment schedule of a year, we do not know whether this is going to be effective if the graduates are still out looking for a job or are underemployed and have pittance left to pay these loans after paying for their food,transport and lodging.

Achtung!

Also, possibly, not many are bothered  whether they can leave the country or not as tourism may not be at the top of their priorities right now.

Some of the negative effects will be the probability that many Sabahans and Sarawakians may not be able to cross from their states to Peninsular Malaysia and vice-versa for retraining, to get a job at the bigger Malaysian cities and the inability to visit family members and relatives.