Mr. Saw who has been driving for the SBS company for 13 years wanted to make sure every cent was returned to its rightful owner.

Mr. Saw immediately gave the bag with the money to the interchange manager. The money was subsequently handed to the police, adding that a police report had been made, according to a spokesman for SBS Transit.

The passenger, who handed the bag to Mr. Saw at around 8:40am at the bus stop across the street from the Outram Park MRT station, told him another passenger had left it behind.

“I would not be able to sleep tonight if I took this money that does not belong to me,” he said in a statement Friday evening.

“I would feel troubled if my passengers are not able to get back their lost items, especially their money.”

Similar acts of honesty

In June 2018, An honest taxi driver also returned a misplaced wallet to a passenger after noticing that it was full of cash – S$1,200 all in all.

The passenger, Daniel Teoh, recalled how he took taxi SHD4223G from Chinatown to Sengkang and left his wallet which was full of cash in the vehicle as he disembarked. After Teoh reported his missing wallet, the taxi driver took the time to travel back all the way from Ang Mo Kio to Sengkang just to return the wallet.

Then in September 2018, a construction company driver was praised by social media users for returning a lost wallet containing approximately S$500 in cash, as well as several identification cards and bank cards.

Mr Shinderpal Singh, 34, was working at Block 917 Jurong West Street 91 that day at about 8:30am when he noticed the black wallet on the floor.

As he was between jobs, he was unable to take the wallet to a police station immediately, he said. But then, he decided to take a photo of the wallet and its contents and posted it on his Facebook profile. The Facebook post received over 4,700 shares and 336 likes, an illustration of how Singaporeans value honesty from people.

Social media users were quick to offer Mr Singh advice on how to contact the owner of the wallet, such as via online searches. Many netizens also praised Mr Singh for his honesty.

Mr Singh, who left his contact number in the Facebook post, said that he received a call at about 4.30pm from a man saying that he knows the owner of the wallet.

The man was able to link him up with the owner and they arranged a meeting at a carpark in Jurong West that evening at about 6pm, he said.

“When we met up, I checked his documents to make sure that he was the right person, before I returned the wallet to him,” he added.

He said that the owner, Mr Nagalingam, thanked him and said that the cash in the wallet was a part of his monthly salary.

Mr Nagalingam, who also works as a driver, had wanted to give Mr Singh S$100 cash as a reward but Mr Singh declined the offer.

Mr Singh, who began working in Singapore 12 years ago, said: “I told him if I wanted money, I would have taken the wallet already.”

Instead, Mr Nagalingam bought him and his colleagues some drinks, he added.

Mr Singh said he told his two children, aged eight and 12, about the incident in a phone call. His children are currently in India.

“I hope to be a good example to my children, and I hope that other people will also follow me and return the lost items they find,” he said.