To help local governments affected by the Covid-19 pandemic Japanese government has distributed 4.5 trillion yen (about S$55 billion) in financial support.

According to Yahoo News Japan, the regional governments can choose how to use their money.

This might have been an oversight.

The town of Noto in the Ishikawa prefecture of Japan received millions of yen from that fund, and promptly decided to use about 27 million yen (S$330,000) of it to build a statue of a giant squid.

Noto is known for squid fishing and its beautiful ocean views.

But the local government decided to augment the town's natural charms by building the giant squid in order to attract tourists.

According to Kotaku, the person in charge of the project said that the funds did not need to be directly related to Covid-19.

The town is therefore taking a "long-term" view, even though locals are disputing its effectiveness as a public relations endeavour.

Perhaps any publicity is good publicity.

Top image from The Tonarinopoti's YouTube channel.