Skopje, 28 February 2023 (MIA) – Not a single denar spent for communications on my social media profiles came from budget funds nor was any employee in the Government’s Communications Sector hired to work overtime on this, said Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski on Tuesday.

PM Kovachevski was quizzed about the report by the Investigative Reporting Lab (IRL) that over the last 100 days, his profile spent EUR 26,000 on sponsored posts on social media, and that the Government’s PR team behind the profiles has been working in two shifts.

“Budget funds have not been used for this. Since this is about implementing social democratic policies, it was all done within my team that is operating outside the Government, while the employees in the Communications Sector that work on preparation or creation of videos do not work a single hour of overtime. Everything that is done in this sector is within the regular working hours,” said Kovachevski.

He stressed that transparency is important and, in this case, everything is transparent so that the citizens can be informed on what the elected and appointed officials are doing in relation to the issues that affect them, and the choice is whether this is done through billboards, press releases or videos and other multimedia presentations on social media.

“If the citizens do not like this type of communication, of course they can express that when the opportunity arises – during elections,” said Kovachevski, adding that all the work concerning social media communications has been paid and data is available which proves it. ad/ik/