COMMENT | The Malaysian administration, and some of its institutions, appear to have gone to the dogs, for allowing the simple Chinese New Year message to go disastrously wrong.

The glaring mistakes over the CNY greeting, when images of dogs are omitted, cannot be blamed on Islamic fundamentalism. They occurred because of sheer incompetence. We take no pride in our work. We do not value proof-reading. We do not check our facts before making them available for public consumption.

When Malaysians took to social media to ridicule the various CNY mistakes, the respective institutions blamed the faults on "technical issues".

What technical issues? Someone made a bad judgment. Someone has to punch in the numbers in a computer. Someone had to push the button to select a colour, a design, an animal or a theme. Have the managements of these institutions run out of dogsbodies to blame for their mistakes?

One mistake is excusable. Two are a coincidence, and three or more mistakes point to a serious flaw in an organisation, and the running of our fundamental institutions.

First, we should send the Tourism Ministry to the dog house, for appointing the Barcelona striker, Luis Suarez, as the Malaysian tourism ambassador.

This ministry has chalked-up an impressive string of follies, from the "Spouse minister calling card", to the kindergarten school inspired "Visit Malaysia 2020" logo. Now, we have Suarez and his confused CNY message .

Was Suarez not briefed about Malaysia? Does he know the location of Malaysia? He is paid RM775,000 per advertisement to promote Malaysia, but the ministry officials have failed to brief him about Malaysian diversity.

When you ask Malaysians about a former tourism ambassador, Jean Todt, the former executive director of Formula 1 Ferrari, they only know Todt as the husband of actress Michelle Yeoh. They can't recall what he did to promote Malaysian tourism...