S$185m paid out in cash-for-car scheme
By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 22 October 2008 2315 hrs

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SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has so far paid out S$185.3m in cash rebates to motorists who want to scrap their cars.

The payout is part of a scheme started in September for motorists to give up their cars for public transport.

The LTA said that since September, it saw 14,233 cars' registration fee papers, commonly known as Certificates of Entitlement (COE) and Preferential Additional Registration Fee (PARF), converted into cash.

60 per cent of the cars are less than five years old.

LTA does not have information to show that those who gave up the cars actually switched to public transport. But it said the cash-back scheme gives owners the flexibility to do so.

Previously, car owners were only able to use the rebates to offset various upfront fees when they register for another new car.

Jerry Ong, a second-hand car dealer, said: "There are people, direct users who applied for this rebate directly. (But) I believe the majority of these people are actually used car dealers. Instead of reselling these PARF papers to new car agents, we actually sell the papers directly to LTA without any deductions.

"Previously, we sold them to all these new car agents. Now we have an additional option of actually selling them back to LTA without any deduction at all, which actually benefits us. So we can give a slightly better trade-in price for consumers.

"Those people who can afford to scrap their cars, they have enough money to top up their (outstanding) car loans. And they'll either have the option of selling their cars or to change cars."

LTA could not give a break-down of how many car dealers and car owners applied for the cash-back scheme.

But the cash-back scheme would not benefit car owner Mr Samsudin, who was featured in Channel NewsAsia's latest episode of Get Rea!.

He will need to fork out an extra S$30,000 to settle his loan, even if he sells his car or scrap it for the rebate.

Mr Samsudin said: "Full settlement, then I can release the car. That's my problem. I don't know where to settle the shortfall."

In general, car dealers said, sales of big cars (above 1.6-litre) have been slow in recent months due to rising petrol prices and higher insurance premiums which have gone up by about 22 per cent.

Some attributed that as one reason for the sharp drop in the latest COE prices for big cars, which fell by nearly half to S$7,589.

COE prices for other vehicles also declined. Small-car COEs are now S$10,989, down S$2,812. COEs for goods vehicles and buses meanwhile fell by S$4,396 to S$11,503, and motorcycle COEs dropped S$280 to S$1,609.

- CNA/ir