Tourism Minister Dr Ng Yen Yen today insisted that her account of the RM1.8 million Facebook campaign was consistent with what her deputy told Parliament.

Ng said reiterated her statement yesterday that the RM1.8 million was for an 'integrated social media campaign', which would encompass online advertising, branding and marketing.

NONE "Anybody in the social media branding and marketing field will know that it is not free. It needs creativity and innovation. It's not just about opening a Facebook page. That is of course free," she said.

In the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday , Ng’s deputy James Dawos Mamit said: “applications through the social media sites were developed with a cost of RM1,758,432.00."

"It included creative, conceptualization and ideas, design, flash programming encoding, testing, debugging, uploading and launching or application, system server deployment and maintenance, development of database from contests, campaign management and monitoring as well as online advertisement and fans recruitment on Facebook and Google ," he said, reading out his reply to the House on Tuesday.

He also added that the six applications for campaigns and activities cost RM293,072 each. The target is to reach 120,000 followers for the Facebook sites by September 2011.

'I'm no expert'

The six campaigns or activities are: Cuti-cuti 1Malaysia, Citrawarna 1Malaysia, 1Malaysia Mega-Sale Carnival, 1Malaysia Contempotary Art Tourism Festival, 1Malaysia Cleanliness Campaign and Fabulous Food 1Malaysia.

However, he did not speak of an 'integrated social media campaign' which is to encompass a variety of other social media platforms and advertising campaigns and claimed by Ng.

Ng today revealed that RM250,000 has been spent on the campaign so far for advertising on Facebook and Google , and not RM1.8 million.

When pressed on why the campaign required such measures such as “dedicated hardware deployment”, “software licencing”, “front end applications” and “application server engine”, Ng replied she could not answer because she was not an expert on such technical matters.

The full breakdown of the costing was given by the Tourism Ministry through a statement. Other components includes flash game programming.

Meanwhile, she poured more scorn on DAP over the matter, claiming that they are deliberately misleading and confusing the public.

DAP is 'clueless'

With the harshest criticism for DAP Youth chief Anthony Loke and Rasah MP who brought the matter to the fore two days ago, Ng called him 'clueless' and 'irresponsible'.

"I tell you all today and you can quote me on this. He is clueless. It is obvious that he is clueless from the way he asked the questions in parliament.

"Anyone who knows social media advertising would know that it is not cheap. Does (Loke) know? Of course he doesn't. He's just a Facebook guy (user).

"DAP has purposely taken the whole social media campaign and distorted it to show that we spent RM1.8 million just on the Facebook page," she said, reiterating that setting up of the Facebook page alone is free.

It was also previously reported that the contract, awarded through an open tender, had been given to Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd.

With allegations of corruption and cronyism with reports that the company consultant was a 'good friend' of Ng, she also gave an open invitation for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the matter.

"We are transparent. We invite the MACC, please come in and investigate this," she said, adding that she is also "fully-prepared" to explain the fiasco in the Cabinet meeting tomorrow.