SAPP: KL loan sharks follow the Money Lenders' Act to Sabah

Revert the Money Lenders licensing to Sabah State Government

Kota Kinabalu, Tuesday June 23, 2009: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Datuk Yong Teck Lee takes to task the federal ministry of finance last year to extend the Money Lenders Act 1951 (Act 400) to Sabah to replace the Sabah Money Lenders Ordinance 1901 (Sabah Cap. 81) was to curb loan shark activities as their main excuse.

"In fact, the extension of the act to Sabah on 1 January 2008, had nothing to do with fighting loan sharks. Every official and minister at the Finance and Home Affairs ministries knows that the loan shark menace in the Peninsula Malaysia is more entrenched, more vicious, more blatant and more organized than that in Sabah and Sarawak .

"The Money Lenders Act was just another piece of the many legislations that have seriously undermined the autonomy of Sabah over the last 46 years of the formation of Malaysia against the spirit of the 1963 Malaysia Constitution based on the Malaysia Agreement of the same year.

"As now proven after eighteen months of the Money Lenders Act replacing the Sabah Money Lenders Ordinance, loan shark activities have escalated in Sabah . News reports of criminal charges in local courts against imported Ah Longs from other states is a case in point. The loan sharks and Ah Longs have literally followed the Money Lenders Act to Sabah .

"Name cards, leaflets, placards and banners at public places now openly offer quick loans with guaranteed secrecy. This practice is a blatant defiance against the law. Even the declaration of "all out war" against loan sharks in Kuala Lumpur by the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Hishamuddin Hussein yesterday, was only in response to news media reports of loan sharks violence. This "war" will lead to some high profile raids for public relations purposes.

"Malaysians in Sabah hope that the actions against Ah Longs in KL will not drive more loan sharks to Sabah .

"SAPP calls for the withdrawal of the Money Lenders Act and reverts the powers and control over money lending licences to the Sabah State government. This is one of the laws that SAPP want to be reviewed and withdrawn under SAPP's 8-Point Declaration.

"The Money Lenders Act was one of the 14 matters brought up personally to the then Prime Minister and his entourage when he met Sabah leaders on 7 April 2008 in Kota Kinabalu to discuss Sabah issues. But the act was hastily extended to Sabah even though the administrative mechanism was not in place yet.

"How could the Sabah Money Lenders Ordinance 1901, which has worked well for a century, be brushed aside just like that? This haste has caused delays, abuses and commercial loses among legitimate lenders and borrowers alike. As usual, Sabah is left to bear the consequences of such negligence," Yong stressed.