Translated by Jesús Ronquillo / Circuito Frontera
In 30 days, the highest expenditure at national level in ads through Meta, that is, Facebook and Instagram, was made by the official account of the Government of the State of Chihuahua, since it enabled 228 ads paying for it 2 million 647 thousand 173 pesos.
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However, the advertisements paid by the state government were also made on other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, although it is not known how much was spent on these, since there is no information available.
According to data consulted by Circuito Frontera in Meta’s advertising reports, from January 6 to February 4, the page of the Chihuahua State Government ranked first among the accounts that have spent the most money on ads, since only in the seven days it registered an expenditure of one million 726 thousand 509 pesos.
Additionally, in her personal account, the Governor of the State, Maru Campos Galván, made an expense of 102 thousand 997 pesos. This means that between the two accounts, the governor spent 2 million 750 thousand 170 pesos, almost 3 million pesos in the course of a month, only on this platform.
It is worth remembering that last Saturday, February 3, the governor of Chihuahua presented her second government report, where she highlighted significant advances in security, health, social inequality, infrastructure and education.
In the material shared by the Coordination of Social Communication, she even boasted the delivery of 2 million 648 thousand 100 pesos, in August 2023, for high school students, a figure 3.7 percent lower than the official publicity expenses in the last four weeks.
The announcements paid by the Governor of the State and in her own account are related, precisely with this second government report where she alluded to the advances that have been made during two years of her administration.
Some of them are related to the actions taken in the Sierra Tarahumara, in the attention of victims of violence, paving in some neighborhoods and food support.
the implementation of the Sentinel Platform was also highlighted, despite the fact that in Ciudad Juarez there was an increase of 13.17 percent compared to 2022.
However, in Ciudad Juarez a high number of homicides continue to be registered on a monthly and constant basis, last weekend alone 10 people lost their lives and in January 124 intentional homicides were registered.
During 2023, at least 154 women were murdered on this border, of which 27 were classified as femicide.
Meanwhile, the interdisciplinary roundtable for the implementation of the gender alert in the state has not been formed since June 2022, as Imelda Marrufo Nava, director of the organization Red Mesa de Mujeres (Women’s Roundtable Network), announced.
Likewise, Chihuahua ranks fifth in terms of violence against children and adolescents, according to the annual report of the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (REDIM).
Chihuahua leads in META advertising
Meta’s report indicated that in the last 30 days, the states of Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Puebla and Mexico City were the ones that spent the most economic resources to advertise.
The state of Chihuahua is in second place in the last month with the highest number of expenses at national level, with an amount of four million 315 thousand pesos. However, in the last seven days, Chihuahua is in first place with an expenditure of 2 million 135 thousand 742 pesos.
What do citizens think?
However, not everything could be bad in this sense, because the proliferation of ads about the actions of the governor of the state, María Eugenia Campos Galván, also gave rise to dozens of Internet users circulating memes about the excessive advertising on digital platforms.
Here are our favorite memes
PS. We deleted the authors’ profiles, but if you think we should publish them, we share the originals.
What does civil society think?
Although spending on official advertising is not a crime, we spoke with some representatives of civil society about their opinion on this issue.
Leobardo Alvarado, activist and cultural manager of this border, commented that, although this practice is not exclusive to the state of Chihuahua, it is particularly notorious, both in the administration of the governor and the mayor of Ciudad Juarez.
He said that the choice of social networks as a means of promotion responds to the high digital consumption of the population, with Facebook being one of the platforms with the highest incidence in certain demographic sectors and rural areas of the state.
“In fact, it is important to communicate what a government does, the point is the exaggeration and the great investment or the great expense, in terms of the public figure that is Governor Maria Eugenia Campos, because this is evidently to position her, above public policies. And that is where the problem lies, because when we get to understand the public policies that are promoted or the report just given by the governor, there are evidently many shortcomings, there are many gaps”, he pointed out.
In the case of Ciudad Juarez there is a great absence on the part of the State Government to solve the problems that occur, just as facts are promoted from the official perspective, where the “failures” are not pointed out.
To cite some examples, he mentioned the case of the BRT public transportation system, the Benito Giraffe, drainage in the city, as well as the issue of insecurity and migration.
Abelamar Chacón, in charge of the Comptrollership of the civil association “Plan Estratégico”, said that the use of resources in social communication and official publicity by the state government, highlights the discrepancy between the image projected in these campaigns and the reality of public services experienced by the citizens.
“Particularly from our point of view here in Juarez, the truth is that we have seen very little, if not practically no results from the State Government. There have been things and lags that continue to accumulate, particularly the issue of public transportation”, he said
He mentioned that the governor is in the middle of her term and continues to owe transportation, since there are fewer and fewer trucks and the few trucks that there are, in spite of the increase, are dangerous, unsafe, deficient and, in general, a bad service.
He said that official publicity often presents the government’s achievements, but does not reflect the reality in critical areas such as public transportation, since despite being halfway through her term, the governor still has significant pending issues in this sector.
“So that through official publicity they want to sell us the idea that there are results, well, to me it seems regrettable because in practice, in reality, the results, the reality is that they are invisible.
Hernán Ortiz Quintana, spokesman for Citizens for a Better Public Administration (CIMAP), indicated that this expense shows what the state government’s priorities are: to promote its image.
Considering that the amount of resources spent to promote its image “is rude” when in Ciudad Juarez there is still no response regarding public transportation or when the Sentinel Platform, which was directly assigned to a single company, has not gone beyond the foundations.
Ciudad Juarez has been at the mercy of criminal groups that organize and move within the CERESO and the State Government that should be in charge of administering the CERESOS, has not arrested or prosecuted a single person. None of those responsible for the corruption that led to the bloodshed of Juarenses on ‘Black Thursday’ have not prosecuted anyone responsible. For them to be able to put weapons in there, there had to be corruption the last time they searched for grenades and there has to be corruption and the State Government is not doing anything about it,” he said.