say no to a columbarium next to our future home!

Taken from Life Corporation's webpage  ( www.cygienics.com) 

Life Corporation through its wholly owned SFS Care Group in Singapore operates a full suite of premium funeral services with personalised planning and organisation of funeral ceremonies for Singapore's multi religious and ethnic customer base. SFS Care Group pioneering one-stop full suite service model of premium funeral services includes funeral event advisory, venue management, certified embalming care, casket sales, faciliatation of cremation and burials, conducting of funeral rites and ceremoney services and along with other ancillary services.

In 2013, we (Cordlife Pte Ltd) re-established ourselves as Life Corporation Pte Ltd as we sold away our cord blood business and entered a relatively untapped market : Funeral Services

In July 2014,  LFC announced its successful tender of a leasehold land in Singapore for the construction of a Chinese temple with columbarium niche storage faciltiy. The land lease acquired is a strategic move as LFC strives to expand its presence in the enlarged bereavement business in Singapore with the columbarium facility.

Comments : 

LFC paid  S$5.2 million for this land. It is a commercial entity. It must make money from this venture. Its sole business is funeral services, not temple management. We don't even know if the 80% space set aside for temple will be for normal temple services or only for services to the dead.

Knowing that chanting services for the dead are being conducted in a building very near to you  practically every day of your life can be unnerving. This is very different from a normal temple or church that may have columbarium attached. 

PM talked about people in many countries feeling angst, anxiety and despondency about the future, but that in Singapore, we can have a well-founded confidence about our future. Can we? Can the future residents of Fernvale Lea and Fernvale Rivergrove? Mr Khaw Boon Wan promised to make all HDB towns endearing estates. Are FL and FR going to be exceptions? 

I hope Dr Lam Pin Min can get HDB to rescind this tender and offer LFC another piece of land away from any housing estate in Singapore for their new business venture and that he can draw on support from our PM too.  It will be a great Jubilee Year gift for the people of Singapore if we can see our leaders showing through their actions  that they really care about  the citizens and that all they've talked about isn't just talk. The Year of Jubilee shouldn't be just about celebrating the past 50 years with no regards for the future.  The future matters more than the past.   How HDB, URA and our leaders handle this issue will tell us a lot about what to  expect for the future. It won't affect the residents of Sengkang alone but also future applicants of HDB flats and even Singaporeans in general.