SPH's Wanbao Stomped The Sunday Times over $7,000 taxi driver

The taxi drivers community in Singapore were up in arms over an article in The Sunday Times that a taxi driver was able to earn $7,000 every month.

This community were up in arms because their wives were questioning them if they were hiding their earnings from them, sans the Inland Revenue Authority. Most taxi drivers highlighted their take home pay were about $2,000 to $3,000 after you deduct the rental and fuel cost.

Ironically, Wanbao, the Chinese newspaper, gathered a confession from this $7,000 taxi driver that the amount stated wasn't his monthly take home revenue.

Translated from AsiaOne Forum contributor,

"This evening (31 Oct), Wanbao posted on its Facebook that Mr Mohammed had clarified. He did not make $7K a month on average. The $7K was a record earning for Mr Mohammed in the month of May only. It doesn’t happen every month:

Wanbao also said that in the interview with Mr Mohammed, he said that he was “framed”. He believed that there were others who were jealous of him and hence, fabricated the rumour that he owed money to the credit company.

However, he did acknowledge that he was out of job for 2 months before he started driving taxi. So, he needed to borrow money to pay for the taxi rental to solve his cash flow problem. He indicated that he had already returned back the money."

Did this taxi driver lie to The Sunday Times reporter? Or was he interviewed done under duress?

A typical feel good story suddenly turned to bad feelings.

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