As part of ‘The Debt Panel’ discussion, The National published an article about a safety supervisor living in Dubai with a huge debt split over three credit cards and a 7,000Dhs, only to support the repayment
I have a loan of Dh17,500 and three credit cards: one with an outstanding balance of Dh9,500, another of Dh7,500 and a third of Dh12,500. My total debt is Dh47,000 and my monthly repayments total Dh3,332. I am from Nigeria and earn Dh7,000, working as a safety supervisor in the oil and gas sector, and my wife and six-month-old son live with me. I built up the debt on the credit cards and loans because my company has been irregular in paying my salary and I missed some of the payments. At one point there was a two-month delay in my salary being paid, and my employer does not have a specific pay day at the moment. I have been searching and applying for buyout loan to consolidate all these balances together, but I have not been having much luck. Owing to some financial obligations back home and accommodation expenses here, I have found it difficult to make the debt payments, which I presume is why my approaches to the bank for a bail out have been rejected. Before my debt becomes outrageous, what can I do?
Ambareen Musa, Founder, CEO of Souqalmal.com and one of the debt panelists had the following to say about this.
It seems the problem had become worse because your employer did not pay your salary on time and the delay caused you to miss your payments. But the biggest problem was to rely on high-cost debt as a substitute for your regular income. You have an outstanding amount of debt on three credit cards and a loan repayment. Each one has a different interest rate…
For full article go to The National
