ComfortDelGro Taxi extends rental relief until September

The $80m move will push the business into the red for the fiscal year.

ComfortDelGro Taxi is extending its daily rental relief until September 2020 to support its cabbies affected by the outbreak, the company announced.

The move is expected to cost the business $80m and effectively pushes the company to the red for the fiscal year ending 31 December 2020. This will be the first time Singapore’s largest taxi operator will post full-year losses, according to CDG Taxi.

The firm’s taxi hirers receive a total of $46.50 per taxi per day in rental relief–comprising $36.50 from the company and $10 from the Government’s Special Relief Fund (SRF).

Under the original timeline, CDG Taxi plans to gradually reduce the relief amounts gradually in April and May. But the worsening economic conditions and enhanced COVID-19 measures launched by the government pushed the company to extend more help to its drivers.

Further, ComfortDelGro will also pass on all savings from the licence fee waiver and the $2,200 given by the government for each unhired taxi to cabbies through a waiver of the call levy until September. These are separate from the $1,000 per month that the government is giving to self-employed persons over the next nine months, said CDG Taxi.

 “Our priority is our cabbies’ survival. The dramatic drop in tourist arrivals, the increased number of people working from home, the enhanced measures to restrict crowds at shopping malls and eateries as well as the closure of nightspots, are having a massive impact on our cabbies. It is unprecedented. Our cabbies are part of the ComfortDelGro family and we want to help them continue to put food on the table,” said CDG Taxi CEO Ang Wei Neng.