Minister still under Facebook fire

Dr Ng Yen Yen's answers fail to convince DAP MP Anthony Loke, who accuses the minister of misleading the public.

UPDATED

KUALA LUMPUR: Tourism Minister Dr Ng Yen Yen continued to come under pressure over the RM1.8 million spent on six Facebook pages to promote tourism.

Taking a swipe at the MCA minister over her comments yesterday, DAP’s Rasah MP Anthony Loke accused Ng of “twisting facts” and “misleading the public.”

Speaking at a press conference at the Parliament lobby today, the opposition politician focused on the three breakdowns highlighted by Ng.

“She says the RM1.8 million partly went to the development of six campaigns including flash games engine, flash programming and coding, creative development and design, campaign ideas and concepts,” he said.

Noting that Facebook had a standard application which did not require special expertise, Loke added: “There is a standard application within Facebook. Anyone can use the design. There is no campaign ideas needed, no conceptualisation needed. You just have to apply the standard application.”

He also ridiculed Ng’s justification that part of the allocation was for the technical aspect.

“She said that it was for the technical aspect including dedicated hardware deployment, software licensing, front end application and application server engine,” he said.

“Since when to put a Facebook page do you need hardware deployment, to pay for software or need to have a server? This is ridiculous,” he said.

In her statement issued yesterday, Ng also said that the “success of digital campaigns requires a team of qualified professionals as well as technical experts… our digital promotion, marketing and branding efforts are entirely different from the political Facebook Fanpage that costs nothing to establish.”

‘Come to Parliament and answer’

Loke rubbished this, questioning what exactly was the difference between a Facebook page that was political in nature and a page that was for tourism purposes.

“Is there a special Facebook application for tourism only?” he asked.

He also took a swipe at Ng’s justification that the first campaign – “Citrawarna 2011” – was a success because in four weeks, the page recorded 24,736 fans and this was an indication that there were equivalent number of tourists.

“Just because you click ‘like’. (Does it mean) that is a potential tourist? It is too simplistic. Is that how the tourism industry considers potential tourists?” he asked.

“If around 24,000 fans is a success than the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission must give an award to ‘Curi-curi Wang Malaysia’ because within 48 hours they have already recorded 60,000 likes,” he added referring to the Facebook page created to mock the amount spent by the ministry.

The ministry revealed in Parliament earlier this week that RM1.8 million was spent on professionally developing six Facebook pages as part of its social media campaign.

This drew the ire of many, especially netizens who created Facebook groups to protest the exorbitant amount spent on what they claimed could be done at almost no cost.

Ng however insisted that the RM1.8 million allocation was not solely to be used to set up Facebook pages.

“(Do) you think it’s cheap (to set this up)? Tourism Australia is spending RM150 million for the next three years on the social media,” she said.

But Loke remained unconvinced.

“She is completely misleading (the public). She should come to Parliament and answer if she is so confident,” he said, adding that there was already an online campaign seeking for her resignation.

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang, who was also at the press conference, quipped that due to the success of the “Curi-curi Wang Malaysia” page, its administrator should be hired to run the ministry’s “Cuti-Cuti Malaysia” campaign instead.

“At least they can do it for free,” he said.

‘Grossly misinterpreted’

Speaking to reporters later, Ng said the Facebook campaign was “grossly misinterpreted”.

Accusing DAP of “twisting the whole thing”, the minister explained that the Facebook pages were part of a larger “integrated social media campaign”.

“You can see how clever the oppositon has used (this to their advantage). It is not easy to understand. Social media is not free and you cannot use in-house people to run it. You can, if you’re a small company,” she said.

Ng added that social media campaigns were not cheap and that companies needed to fork out a lot of money just to keep them afloat.

While admitting that Facebook pages themselves were free, she said that other tasks, especially advertising, were not.

She said that the RM1.8 million used for the “Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia” page was actually an allocation for the whole social media campaign.

Ng also said that RM250,000 had been spent on advertising thus far, calling it the “beginning”.