You can tank former pm HAI for that no minimum salary deduction policy decision in 1992. That was the beginning of the destruction of the middle class. After the drug era of the 1980's Bahamians who fell for that policy and maxed out their salary with deductions unknowingly threw financial sacrifice and discipline out of the proverbial window to satisfy the greedy banks and credit unions thus forfeiting the chance to invest and create meaningful wealth for themselves. We need to learn from and develope the mindset of the chinese and think in generational terms. Instead we choose to run to Miami for shopping every chance we get and engage in habits for instant pleasure to a large degree.

Hmm someone voluntarily enters into an agreement to pay over time for an item via salary deduction and it is the store owners fault. Whilst anyone can tell you that way of paying is a rip off, no one is forcing people to do that. Is the letter writer saying that civil servants (in particular, as they get mentioned a lot) are not smart enough to look after their affairs?

Come on man, you cannot be that obtuse?

Do you not understand Mr. Allen's letter? Pedantic, aren't you?

Yes i understand Mr. Allens letter. It is putting the blame of civil servants being paid a pittance after deductions at the fault of those who get the deductions, rather then the person who decided to enter into the deduction voluntarily in the first place. Yes it is asinine that people can have deductions of up to 70% of their salary ( i think its this amount), but yet again no one forced them to and only they know how much they can afford to pay out and be OK. Or should we just say no deductions and they hear the complaint that people are unable to get a car as they can't pay full, or unable to get a fridge etc. Then what would your plan be? Somehow we as a society have got to point where people do not need to take personal responsibility for their actions which seems strange.

Yep, Mr. Allen described government employees as fools who are incapable of making decisions about their finances, and that the government should make these decisions for them, because as we know governments always make the right decisions…

A major appliance retailer always announces on the radio:

you do not have to have money

you just have to have salary to deduct

The civil servant salary deduction matter was indeed a huge and most wrongful gift by Hubert A. Ingraham to those who bank-rolled his election win in 1992. Civil servants quickly started borrowing like there was no tomorrow from Commonwealth Bank which was then majority beneficially owned by members of the Symonette family. That family made out like bandits from the sky rocketed increase in Commonwealth Bank's earnings, not to mention the very significant appreciation in the value of its shares back then.

What most Bahamians may not know is that Hubert Ingraham went even one step further for his favourite financial backers. The government he led passed the legislation that gives consumer lenders like Commonwealth Bank the first bite at the estate of a deceased civil servant to satisfy any outstanding amounts owed that were not satified by direct salary reduction. Many a Bahamian family who thought they stood to inherit something from a deceased member of their family who was employed by government have learned the hard way that that is not necessarily the case after the bank gets its first bite of the apple.

For clarification:

Upon the death of a civil servant enrolled in a bank's salary deduction scheme, anything owed by government (including all pension and death benefits of any kind) will be paid directly by government to the bank in order to satisy all amounts owed by the deceased civil servant to the bank.