SINGAPORE: A trilateral group tasked to look into the issue of foreigners illegally performing platform work released a set of 10 recommendations on Thursday (Sep 11), which includes stronger enforcement and tougher penalties against illegal point-to-point rides.
These illegal rides comprise foreign-registered vehicles providing cross-border trips and point-to-point trips within Singapore, and trips by local or foreign drivers who match with passengers on unlicensed channels like Telegram chat groups.
Currently, offenders can be jailed for up to six months and fined up to S$3,000 (US$2,300). Their vehicles may also be forfeited. The government will push to increase the penalties, the trilateral group said in a statement.
At a briefing for media on Wednesday, representatives from the trilateral group did not specify what these higher penalties will be, but said they will be set at a sufficiently deterrent level after consulting with the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
Another recommendation by the trilateral group is for any platform worker who has let a foreigner use his or her account to work illegally to be banned from all major platforms for at least two years.
Previously, suspension of accounts took place on individual platforms and did not happen on a cross-platform basis.
When the recommendations are implemented, platform operators will notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) about suspected cases of accounts being misused.
MOM will then investigate all such reports and platform operators will ban the platform worker if he or she is found to have committed an offence under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.
On Thursday, Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Health Koh Poh Koon said that platform operators still have the prerogative to permanently ban the platform worker if they wish do to so.
He added that foreigners who perform platform work illegally already face stringent penalties under the law.
They can be jailed for up to two years and fined up to S$20,000. A local who allows a foreigner to misuse his or her platform account can face the same penalties.
In the past few years, MOM received an average of 50 complaints a year about alleged misuse of platform worker accounts. Most of the complaints were not substantiated upon investigation, MOM said.
The trilateral group was set up in July and comprises MOM, the Ministry of Transport, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Grab Singapore.
Since July, over 70 vehicles have been caught providing illegal point-to-point services.
Enforcement was also stepped up at more than 30 potential hotspots, resulting in checks of 644 platform workers. Four were arrested for working illegally.
The recommendations were announced at a press conference by Dr Koh, Senior Minister of State for Transport Sun Xueling, NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng and Grab’s group managing director of operations Yee Wee Tang.
The trilateral group said it engaged platform operators Amazon Flex, ComfortDelGro Zig, Deliveroo, Foodpanda, Gojek, Grab, Lalamove, Ryde and Tada in the course of its work.
The recommendations will be adopted by all these platform operators and implemented in phases with some, such as those requiring legislative amendments, taking more time.
