Happy to be helpful

This is one advertisement which shows what sort of thorough work is put by our Tourism Ministry in preparing for the Visit Malaysia year 2007.

With some RM200 million being spent to make this campaign a successful tourism money earner, and with some much of national pride attached to it, the ministry surely has people at all nooks and corners to ensure a massive ego-boosting success at the end of the campaign.

In the run up to the campaign, many locals and tourists complained that the government seemed unprepared for the campaign - with so many local tourists destinations being neglected and the infrastructure definitely Third World standards.

And then, today there were complaints that the hastily launched Hip-Hop bus service in KL was totally unprofessional.

But for me, this advertisement, carried in the NST on Dec 31, epitomises the whole botched job the ministry has been doing in preparing for this campaign.

Just as the ad says, I am happy to be helpful in pointing out that it is an embarrassing shame to note that even government ads make such silly schoolboy mistakes.

In case you are still wondering, it should read 1 DAY to go, NOT 1 DAYS to go!

If the ministry can’t get it right, how do we expect the front-bench civil servants to properly communicate with our foreign guests?