I refer to the Malaysiakini article Loan sharks - the root cause .

After the national outcry over the inhumane behavior of the illegal moneylenders or ‘Ah Long' for locking up borrowers with chains around their necks, there have been promises of stern police action.

One or two local councils have also boldly torn down illegally put up advertisements by these Ah Longs.

But things have predictably returned to 'normal'.

Our national outrage seems to have been temporarily halted by stories about an Indonesian teen model and her Kelantan prince husband and another case of a single mother mistreating her Indonesian maid.

Then, of course, political stories about PAS President Haji Hadi Awang and his deputy Nasaruddin Mat Isa causing a split within the party for the duo's enthusiasm for a so-called 'unity government' with Barisan Nasional.

Since all these stories have caused a furore and overshadowed the threat of the Ah Longs, my humble mind has come up with a ridiculous theory, ie, that it was the Ah Long syndicates which engineered all these stories to deflect public anger towards them.

After a while, things will return to normal and the politicians and the enforcement agencies, for whatever reason, will have lost their appetite to fight the Ah Long menace. In the absence of new measures, things will have indeed returned to normal.

The poor will still go to the Ah Long for emergency loans because borrowing from the banks can be quite tiresome and sometimes the banks are even worse because very often, bank charges and can be quite hefty.

We should feel angry with Bank Negara and the Treasury for saying that the level of credit card borrowings has yet ‘to reach a critical level'. So when it does, what do we do? Will Bank Negara give me money to pay off my credit card loans? I don't think so.

As an Islamic nation, Bank Negara and the government should be aiming for a zero-debt among its citizens. Shouldn't this be our moral code. Some individuals have managed to adhere to this code and live a happy, moderate life.

There are even corporate CEOs who refused to take out bank loans which would only burden their shareholders.

In so far as ordinary citizens are concerned, especially wage earners, I would suggest that we implement a system of weekly salary payments like what has been done in many Western countries for a long time.

With all the modern technology, it is now even easier to do this and besides, workers will be truly paid for their 52 weeks of work in a year. I believe that if people are paid every week, they can plan their budgets better and perhaps avoid from going to the Ah Long.