Indonesia-based ride-hailing firm Gojek has announced the creation of the Gojek Partner Support Fund (GPSF), to support drivers, merchants, and other partners whose income has been adversely affected by the economic slowdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
As citizens have been following the advice of health officials to work from home and limit their movements, hundreds of thousands of drivers and merchants are seeing a significant drop in their income. The support fund is being introduced to ensure Gojek’s partners to support their families while they wait for the current situation to abate, so the announcement.
The GPSF will be administered through a newly created foundation named Anak Bangsa Bisa. The foundation intends to work with multiple stakeholders including government, civil society groups, and driver groups to determine the best way to manage the support fund, with the priority of supplementing the income of drivers and other partners in this period of uncertainty, according to the announcement.
The funding will come from three sources. Gojek’s co-CEOs Andre Soelistyo and Kevin Aluwi, and the senior management team will donate 25% of their annual salary over the next 12 months. Contributions are also expected to come from Gojek’s annual salary increase budget and other parties, mainly from corporate partners.
In a joint statement, Soelistyo and Aluwi said that “our problems pale in comparison to the hardships the coronavirus is likely to place on our driver partners, whose livelihoods depend on an economy that is experiencing a significant slowdown.”
Soelistyo and Aluwi also pointed out that all companies have a responsibility to offer support where they can. “This is something we can do to help the world through this extraordinary period,” the co-CEOs said in the press statement.