'Excessive' enforcement on foreigners working illegally in food delivery comes at a cost: Koh Poh Koon

SINGAPORE: Excessive enforcement action to deter foreigners working illegally on delivery platforms can affect the livelihoods of legitimate platform workers and customers waiting for food, said Senior Minister of State for Manpower Koh Poh Koon on Friday (Sep 26).

Instead, what is more sustainable is for operators to go "more upstream", and run frequent facial recognition checks on workers throughout the day, he said. This is on top of the facial verification done by operators during the onboarding process.

SINGAPORE – Three foreigners were on Tuesday fined between $3,800 and $10,000 for working illegally as food delivery riders in Singapore without valid work passes.

A Singaporean and a permanent resident (PR), who provided the foreigners with account access on the food delivery platforms, were also fined for abetting these offences.

Only Singaporeans and PRs can legally work as riders for food delivery platforms in Singapore.

Ng Teik Chuan, who is Malaysian, was fined $10,000 for working as a food delivery rider using MilkRun and LiveExpress platforms from May 2022 to March 2023.

He earned a total of about $17,000 before he was caught in March by Ministry of Manpower (MOM) enforcement officers while he was out making deliveries.

Also in that same month, Indian national Amanullah Faizal Navas, 37, borrowed Singaporean Muhammad Mubeen Muthibbi Sahul Hameed’s Foodpanda account. The duo, who were each fined $3,800 on Tuesday, are friends.

Mubeen, 47, shared his e-mail address and password with Amanullah, and helped the latter unlock his Foodpanda account using facial recognition.

Malaysian Chaw Soon Yaw, 28, who was working as a cook here, borrowed his brother’s Deliveroo account from December 2022 to March 2023. His brother, Soon Song, is a 23-year-old PR. They were each fined $5,000 on Tuesday.

On March 10, Soon Yaw discovered that his brother’s Deliveroo account had been suspended. This came after he had been confronted by a member of public who warned him that it was illegal for a foreigner to work as a food delivery rider in Singapore.

Soon Yaw had made about $2,090 as a rider by then.

MOM said in a statement in September that it has been engaging the major food delivery platforms to enhance their processes and prevent the misuse of accounts by unauthorised parties.

The ministry added that it also worked with the platforms on educational messages to advise riders against allowing foreigners to use or share their food delivery accounts.

Foreigners who are self-employed without a valid work pass can be jailed for up to two years, fined up to $20,000, or both. On conviction, they will be permanently barred from working in Singapore.

Local delivery platform workers who are found to have allowed foreigners to use their accounts may face similar penalties.

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