Ministry spends RM1.8 million for Facebook

KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 14: How much does it cost to attract fans to your Facebook? In the case of Harakahdaily – launched last year and which now boasts a pool of more than 170,000 fans growing by the hour – not a single sen.

The same is not the case with the Tourism ministry, who told Parliament today that it spent RM1.8 million on six Facebook pages to promote the ministry’s various programmes.

DAP’s Rasah member of parliament Anthony Loke questioned why such a big sum of money was spent on managing a page on Facebook when it could have been done without spending a single sen.

“When I last checked, there were 20,308 fans who ‘liked’ the ministry’s Facebook page,” he said, referring to one of the pages.

“In comparison, the ‘Visit Penang’ Facebook page by the Penang state government has more than 100,000 fans. So why spend RM1.8 million?,” he asked during the additional question session.

Earlier, Anthony and Tangga Batu MP Idris Haron demanded the Tourism minister to justify the cost, and asked for a detailed breakdown as well as companies awarded to handle the job.

In his reply, its deputy minister James Dawos Mamit said the project had been awarded to one Impact Creations Sdn Bhd, an advertising agency, for the period 2011 to 2013.

He said the contract included creative design, layout, flash programming, coding, testing, debugging, uploading, launching of application, system server deployment, maintenance, development of database from contests, campaign management and monitoring, as well as online advertisement and fans recruitment. The six Facebook pages are Cuti-Cuti 1 Malaysia, Citrawarna 1Malaysia, Karnival Jualan Mega 1 Malaysia, Kempen 1Malaysia Bersih, Fabulous Food 1 Malaysia and Festival Pelancongan Seni Kontemporari 1 Malaysia.

‘We could have helped’

Anthony (left) however said it was strange that the ministry had no one who could manage a Facebook page and had to resort to appointing a company.

In jest, he said the ministry could have asked for advice from members of parliament who are savvy with online social networking.

Rembau MP Khairy Jamaludin also lent his voice to the criticism.

“I now have 2,013 fans who ‘like’ my page and its design is nothing fancy, and uses the same template. There is no need to see the Penang tourism page. There are members of parliament here who are very popular,” he remarked.

Launched in February 2004, Facebook now has some 600 million users. The service, which is provided free, generates its income out of online advertisements on its user pages.