90,000 bankruptcies in last 5 years

TOTAL of 90,848 people in the country were declared bankrupt in the last five years, and Selangor topped the list with 23,483 going insolvent.

In the first eight months of this year, Selangor recorded more than 3,000 insolvency cases involving individuals, or an average of 13 people in the state going bankrupt every day, Nanyang Siang Pau reported yesterday.

According to the report, based on Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) statistics on bankruptcy cases from 2014 to August this year, mismanagement of finances was cited in 40.4% of the total cases.

Other reasons include high living costs (27%), failure/slowdown in businesses (13.7%), unemployment/

Aretrenchment (9.3%) and high medical costs (7.7%).

AKPK statistics showed that Johor had the second highest number of people who were declared bankrupt in the last five years, with 12,880, of which 1,682 were recorded in the first eight months of this year.

Federal Territory followed closely with 11,325 cases, 1,258 of which were recorded between January and August this year.

It was reported that 69.4% of those declared bankrupt in the last five years were in the 30-50 age group.

AKPK Penang chief Mohd Nordin Abd Rahman said 14.2% of the bankrupts were below 30 years old whereas 16.4% of them were older than 50.

He said mismanagement of finances was the reason 40.4% of some 90,000 people went bankrupt.

Many swipe their credit cards to make ends meet, he said in explaining why high living costs accounted for 27% of the total cases.