Joke of The Day : RM1.8million for Facebook Pages

Another jokes of the day!  

A whopping RM1 758 432 was spent on developing six Facebook pages to promote Malaysian tourism said the Tourism Ministry.

Ridiculous isn’t it? A 6 years old can start a Facebook page for free, so why the hell they need to spend so much just to make few Facebook pages?

Facebook is FREE, that's one of the reasons more and more businesses are using it to promote their products and company. Even if u wanna do high-end Flash or other coding also do not need so much. To think that the Tourism Ministry threw away RM1.8 million of taxpayers' money on something that is free, makes me want to throw up. 

This should be answered by Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen, the Minister of Tourism Malaysia coz even with this massive budget, they only managed to attract around 20k fans. And I guess this 20k Facebok fans would have been all the employees in Tourism ministry, their multiple kids and family because me myself never heard any of these pages before.

This is a prime candidate for the most ridiculous public project that Malaysian officials have done in 2011. The other two are the RM50million 1Malaysian email project and the RM1.4mil (hacked) 1Pengguna website .What an absurd waste of taxpayer money.

I’m not from IT field, but still I know few things about IT that is necessary for me to keep on the flow. And I can’t see any reason why they need to spend RM1.8m for designing, flash programming and coding, testing and debugging, uploading and launching the application, system server deployment and campaign management. 

Flash is a freeware, even for license, it wouldn’t cost that much. System server deployment? Starting up server need money? Why do u need server in the first place? This is ridiculous! And flash programming and coding, testing and debugging, uploading and launching the application? This is the job of a programmer, just hire them and they'll do the rest, and all of the above don’t even cost 1.8m! This is a scam!

Even DAP’s Loke said “If Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen has problems getting people to help start Facebook pages, DAP headquarters can help her out, we have people who can develop these things at no cost,”. This is so pathethic, Ministry of Tourism!

And please don’t be so arrogant by just dismissed the public grievances by vague, evasive and meaningless press statement. Madam Ng dares not give statement in Parliament coz she knows that she would be questioned over and over again by even her ally Khairy. Ok, Yen Yen just tell us how much did Australia spend on promoting tourism in Facebook which is just one of the many many social media in the world.

Australia spend RM150mil, Malaysia need RM1.8m, but please tell me the difference between Australia and Malaysia on the map? They are bigger than us more than 75 times! And do u know how 1+1 is??? Madam Ng, the truth is, ur promotion only attract Bangla, Nepalese and Indons to Malaysia but not the genuine tourist who really spent in our country. You're going on reverse Madam Ng.  Shit I don't understand the way our ministers talk as though we are from different countries, and are enemies, within Malaysia.

And this is only the ones we know about, what about the wastages that are kept hidden from us?

To rub salt into the wound, the recent 1 Malaysia music and floral carnival that was held in Botanical Garden area in Penang on 11th and 12th of June, cost the Ministry of tourism RM1mil to put up. But still lack of publicity and the crowd was small and the events were disappointing and lack of attraction. And I am wondering what were the target visitors, the tourist or our own citizens? To spend such amount of money for what purpose and any return? Where is the KPI for this event?

I really believe it's time to change the Tourism Minister. It's not the first time she's wasting money like this.

The way government spending the RAKYAT money is as though our currency denomination is equivalent to the RUPIAH!! No wonder the government needs to table a RM13 billion Supplementary Bill! The way the govt is "throwing" away money and yet ask the rakyat to tighten their belts is hypocrisy of the highest order!

I make my own assumption on how this RM1.8 mil figure comes;

This is how it work... 

1) TM puts out closed tender to 'crony' company 

2) 'Crony' company(s) go out and find private companies to do 

3) Private companies gives cost + percentage 

4) 'Crony' company multiplies the cost 

5) Submit...= 1.8 million. 

Let's take a look at cost: 

1) Web/Flash Programmer for 6 month@RM5,000 = RM30,000 

2) 2 Artists @ RM3,000 for 6 months = RM36,000 

3) Art Director @ RM5,000 for 1 month = RM5,000 

3) Hosting fees (RM1,000 per 6 month..can be cheaper) = RM6,000 

= RM77,000 

RM 1,800,000/77,000...Awesome 23x profit...!

Ps : I found out that there’s a new Facebook page "Curi-curi Wang Malaysia" and get more fans than Tourism Malaysia...at zero cost !!!

Madam Ng must be saying this. "I whacked a bit u all made so much noise. My predecessor whacked so much also nothing happened to her. Some more after GE13, no chance leh..coz my boss Ah Leg said if we in GE13 fare worse than the last GE, we all have to 'ta pau' and go back to 'kampung'”  (joking  ;-p)