PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s caretaker administration said on Wednesday it was gathering evidence against former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party for using taxpayers’ money to recruit “social media trolls” and would soon assign the case to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for probe.
The development comes days after media reports started circulating that the PTI administration in the province had inducted thousands of social media activists to promote the party interests and discredit political rivals.
“I have acquired the list of recruiters and the policy adopted while employing these trolls,” Barrister Feroze Jamal Shah, the caretaker information minister of the province, told Arab News. “It is beyond my comprehension how taxpayers’ money was being misused.”
Shah said the previous provincial administration had inducted about 5,000 social media activists, adding that each one of them was getting Rs25,000 while working from home and promoting PTI’s interests.
“There were also serious flaws in the recruitment process,” he continued. “I am collecting information and will then request the chief minister to send the case to the FIA to thoroughly investigate it and bring those responsible to task.”
Shah said 1,200 social media activists were recruited in the information department only, adding that all of them were getting their salaries while working from home.
He informed there was no district where these “social media trolls” were not working to safeguard PTI’s interests and counter the narrative of other political parties.
“Our province is facing a flour shortage and we are unable to offer subsidies to the masses in this holy month,” he continued. “But ironically, the PTI was spending about Rs150 million per month to carry out its image building exercise.”
Speaking to Arab News, the PTI social media head in the province, Ikram Katana, said it was not the prerogative of the caretaker administration to discuss or interfere in the approved projects of a constitutionally elected government.
“Caretaker setup is installed only to hold free and fair elections,” he said. “Recruitment of social media influencers is purely a PTI government initiative to train and empower youth of the province.”
He also dismissed the claim that the previous government had not followed the established recruitment rules, saying it formally advertised the project and invited applications of aspiring candidates whose followers exceeded 10,000 on Facebook and 1,000 on YouTube.
“All applicants went through a recruitment process involving the scrutiny of candidates,” he added. “There were no PTI favorites among the influencers. The program aimed to offer internships to the youth of the province.”
Irfanullah Khan, a political analyst, said the country was going through an unprecedented phase where its institutions and departments were deeply polarized along political lines.
He said the issue of hiring social media influencers was a huge question mark over PTI’s nine-year performance in the province.
“Such tactics only create fissures among people and institutions in the long term,” Khan said. “The PTI campaign through its paid trolls is simply deplorable and must be probed to recover the wasted [taxpayers’] amount.”
