Deputy Tourism Minister James Dawos Mamit today said that the ministry will not be revealing the itemised costing of its controversial social media campaign.

Speaking to reporters at the Mata Annual Conference 2011, he said this is because the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) may be probing the case.

NONE“My officers have the breakdown, I don’t have it. I don’t know, but since MACC has been invited to look at it, we cannot (reveal the breakdown) until MACC says yes,” James (left) said.

Earlier, Tourism Minister Dr Ng Yen Yen said that the ministry has invited the anti-graft body to look into claims that there could be irregularities in the use of public funds for the RM1.8 million campaign.

Asked about this today, her deputy said that there has been no developments on the ministry’s invitation to date.

In a press statement last week, the Tourism Ministry revealed that among the items paid for in the campaign were hardware and software licensing.

When asked why the ministry needs to foot the bill for such items, James said that “the whole thing is for maintenance of the social media campaign, management and also for giving prizes”.

But when pressed further on the need to pay for something the contractor can also use for projects not benefitting the ministry, he said, “It could have been in the package (offered by the contractor).”

The contractor, Impact Creations Sdn Bhd, won a RM30 million contract to develop and manage a domestic tourism campaign, of which RM1.8 million was allocated for the ministry’s first venture into social media, using the Facebook platform.

NONEThe aim is to get 120,000 fans by the end of the year on the back of Facebook applications and online advertising surrounding six events.

The ministry caught flak when the matter was revealed during question time in the Dewan Rakyat, resulting in a parody Facebook page.

The parody page Curi-curi Wang Malaysia had in less than a week surpassed the official page in terms of number of fans.

Isa, hands off our EPF money