To be fair to Dr. Ng Yen Yen, RM1.8 million was a reasonable amount to be spent on Social Media & Search Engine marketing. Let’s take Ng Yen Yen’s explanation that the amount was spent on Social Media marketing & not for creating 6 Facebook… pages (which is part of social media marketing strategies) as alleged by DAP at face value.

Now, the question we should ask is why did Dr. Ng hire Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd to do social media marketing for Tourism Ministry? According to Ng, the contract was awarded to Impact Creations through an open tender & made according to procedures stated in tender documents.

What criteria was used when selecting this company for the project?

Sadly, the first question that needs to be asked is not “Do they have any experience in social media marketing?” but “Do they even have a website?” Do they even use social media tools to market their company or website?

If you Google for the company, you will find little information about this company. Their website http://impactcreations.com.my/ which was registered on April 22, 2011 under Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd, is still under construction. It was registered by someone who uses an email under another domain, & that domain was registered in December 2010, & that domain is also under construction.

This could be the reason why some people associated Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd with Impact Challenger Sdn Bhd.

Dr. Ng refuted allegations that the contract was awarded to a company purportedly owned by her friend Juni Ewe, who was a managing director of a company known as Impact Challenger Sdn Bhd. The similarities of their names & the image of man at work at Impact Creations’ website with Impact Challenger’s egg image could be the reason why others suspected that Impact Challenger was the company behind the 6 Facebook pages. See http://www.impactchallenger.com.my/im/vision.jpg and http://www.impactcreations.com.my/Untitled-1.swf

According to Dr. Ng, Impact Creations & Impact Challenger were two separate companies. Impact Creations was owned by Hamidah Yussof & Siti Alwiyah Jally. Let’s take her explanation at face value without any prejudice http://www.mca.org.my/en/ng-contracts-awarded-in-right-manner/ .

According to Dr. Ng, Impact Crea­tions was awarded a contract valued at RM30 million a year for domestic market & events. So, the allegation that she had spent RM1.8 million to create 6 Facebook pages could hold water. I wonder what would they do with the rest of the money (RM28.2 million).

What we want to know now is whether that RM30 million contract was awarded to Ali (usually UMNO members/cronies) who would later subcontract it to another Baba company (usually MCA members/cronies). If Impact Challenger was behind the social media marketing for Tourism Ministry as alleged, then we have a lot to worry, because judging from the quality of their website, they have very little experience in social media marketing. Hopefully not. But if  Impact Creations was the one doing social media and search marketing for Tourism Ministry, then we have a lot more to worry. Instead of awarding the contract to Impact Creations, a company that doesn’t even have a functional website, it is better and cheaper to engage a reputable Search Engine Marketing agency to do search engine and social media marketing for Tourism Ministry; or hire a full-time Search Engine Marketing manager and Social Media manager to manage Tourism Ministry’s online campaign.

DAP should find out whether:

(1) Is this another example of Ali Baba deals (the main reason why the cost of government projects were always overpriced & overbloated) where contracts were awarded to UMNO’s cronies who would later subcontract it to MCA’s cronies?

(2) Is this yet another proof that companies were set up overnight by cronies for the purpose of receiving contracts from the government?

I hope DAP could find out for us, because so far the answers given by Dr Ng was unsatisfactory to me. So I hope that Dr. Ng Yen Yen could clear our doubts. If the allegation wasn’t true, then she has every rights to be furious. But she should calm down when answering questions. The taxpayers have the rights to know how the government spent their money. I hope Dr. Ng should understand that we want a government that is accountable to the Rakyat.

Before the age of the Internet, you could fool all the Malaysians all the time with The Star, Utusan Malang, Berita Hairan, RTM, & TV3. With the Internet, you can’t do that anymore. Thanks to Al Gore for the Internet! 🙂

Oh yeah, don’t forget to buy a few copies of the new Guinness Book of World Records 2012 at Amazon.com or MPH bookstore! We should be proud that 1 Malaysia is bursting with amazing new records!