{"id":62036,"date":"2020-02-14T15:53:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T07:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=62036"},"modified":"2020-02-14T15:53:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T07:53:24","slug":"singapore-s77-million-package-to-help-taxi-private-hire-drivers-affected-by-covid-19-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=62036","title":{"rendered":"Singapore: S$77 million package to help taxi, private-hire drivers affected by COVID-19 outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>SINGAPORE, Feb 14 (NNN-CNA) &#8212; A S$77 million Point-to-Point Support Package\u00a0to help\u00a0taxi and private-hire car drivers affected by the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/news\/singapore\/coronavirus-covid-19-singapore-cases-feb-12-12426526\" target=\"_blank\">COVID-19 outbreak<\/a>\u00a0was announced by the\u00a0Singapore government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Government will contribute S$45 million towards the package, with the remaining provided by\u00a0taxi and private-hire car operators.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Government recognises that there is an urgent need for targeted assistance to drivers,&#8221;\u00a0the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and Ministry of Transport (MOT)\u00a0said in a press release.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The package has multiple components. The largest portion is a S$73 million Special Relief Fund\u00a0that will help active full-time taxi and private-hire car drivers defray business costs, comprising S$41 million in government contributions and S$32 million from operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The taxi drivers as well as the private-hire car drivers, do describe a significant reduction in the number of trips they&#8217;re able to make per day,&#8221; said Senior Minister of State for Transport&nbsp;Janil Puthucheary.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Some of our data suggests that it&#8217;s 10 per cent. But I think there may be some lag, and the drivers that I&#8217;ve spoken to today, the numbers that they&#8217;re showing me on the apps in terms of the rides they have logged over the last couple of days suggest a larger change.&#8221;&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 40,000 eligible drivers will receive up to S$20 per vehicle per day for three months, contributed equally by the Government and operators.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eligible taxi hirers will automatically receive the special relief through their taxi operators starting from Friday, while&nbsp;private-hire car drivers have to apply through their companies.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Private-hire car operators Grab and Gojek will provide application and disbursement details to their drivers within the next week, LTA and MOT said.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The companies that will be contributing to the package are taxi operators&nbsp;Comfort, CityCab, SMRT Taxis, Trans-Cab, Premier Taxis, Prime and HDT Taxi, along with Grab and Gojek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Active drivers who do not qualify for the Special Relief Fund can still benefit from financial assistance by applying for the\u00a0Government &amp; NTUC Driver Care Fund. The Government will contribute S$2.7 million towards the fund, with trade union NTUC administering it over the next three months. &#8212; NNN-CNAnths of operator licence fees, totalling about S$1.3 million. The authority will also\u00a0delay the implementation of the upcoming\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/news\/singapore\/private-hire-car-drivers-grab-gojek-licensed-lta-transport-bill-11786370\" target=\"_blank\">Street-hail Service Operator Licence and\u00a0Ride-hail Service Operator Licence<\/a>.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The scheme will take effect from September 2020, instead of June.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE, Feb 14 (NNN-CNA) &#8212; A S$77 million Point-to-Point Support Package\u00a0to help\u00a0taxi and private-hire car drivers affected by the\u00a0COVID-19 outbreak\u00a0was announced by the\u00a0Singapore government. The Government will contribute S$45 million towards the package, with the remaining provided by\u00a0taxi and private-hire car operators.\u00a0 &#8220;The Government recognises that there is an urgent need for targeted assistance to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62036"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}