As the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) will cease from 1 Jan 2021, a more generous COVID-19 Driver Relief Fund (CDRF) will replace the current Special Relief Fund (SRF) for taxi and private hire car (PHC) drivers at the same time, to moderate the impact on drivers. The new CDRF scheme will cost an additional $133 million, on top of the $55 million committed towards the SRF. See Table 1 below. 

          Table 1: CDRF payouts

2        Existing drivers who are eligible for the SRF (about 52,000 drivers) will be automatically transitioned to the CDRF from January 2021.

3        Active taxi and private hire car drivers who receive the CDRF payouts will not be eligible for the COVID-19 Recovery Grant (CRG) announced today by the Ministry of Social and Family Development. Drivers who do not qualify for the CDRF may apply for the CRG if they meet its eligibility criteria.

4        Since February 2020, the Government has provided support to taxi and private hire car (PHC) drivers through the SRF ($300/vehicle/month). Eligible drivers have also received payouts ($3,000 each in May, July and October 2020) under the SIRS announced as part of the Resilience Budget in March 2020.

5        Despite the improving COVID-19 situation in Singapore, taxi and PHC ridership remains lower than pre-COVID levels as tourism activities remain muted and many employees are still working from home. COVID-19 has also changed commuting patterns, with shorter taxi and PHC trips which result in lower fares per trip. LTA has been monitoring the situation closely, in particular the continued concerns among taxi and PHC drivers over their incomes and livelihoods as we head into 2021, and has regularly engaged drivers, operators, the National Taxi Association and the National Private Hire Vehicles Association.

6          We would like to thank all partners and stakeholders for working closely with LTA in supporting taxi and PHC drivers in these challenging times.