A petition on the change.org platform to opt-out of receiving the National Day Parade (NDP) funpack has so far garnered over 12,496 signatures.
The petition was started on May 21 by a man named Kaushik Ilango. The petition is against every Singaporean and Permanent Resident household in Singapore receiving a funpack to celebrate National Day this year.
With a smaller National Day Parade (NDP) being held this year, chairman of the NDP executive committee, Brigadier-General Frederick Choo, announced on Wednesday (May 20) that Singaporeans have a “very close affinity with” funpacks, and that every Singaporean and PR household will be taken into account.
He added that he estimates around 1.2 or 1.3 million households will be able to get their hands on the funpack and that the packs will consist of items that will help people interact with the show itself.
However, in Mr Ilango’s petition, he explained that while he understands the “joy” that the funpacks could bring, he believes that “there could be a much better use of the resources used to make roughly 1.4 million funpacks; such as the perishable goods inside the funpack, the novel single-use items, the manpower to acquire, make and distribute the funpacks and not to mention the planning of it”.
“All these are resources that could be better spent addressing more urgent needs of the society at present”, he wrote.
Furthermore, Mr Ilango wrote that not every single item in the funpack is of any long term use and that it is not uncommon to see many of these funpacks thrown away at the end of NDP in the past years.
He added that the resources going into the funpacks could be better utilized.
“I for one would prefer to give my funpack away to someone who needs it more than I do. I also do not want to see many funpacks disposed off irresponsibly by those who do not need it. This will only require more manpower to clean it up”, he wrote.
Netizens who signed the petition commented that they felt it was a waste of money and that the funds could be better allocated to Singaporeans who need it more.
Others criticized it harshly, calling it a “waste of resources”.
/TISG