Lusaka City Council (LCC) has cut down 91 illegal bill boards in the Central Business District (CBD) in the last one week in the bid to control the placement of billboards in the city.
The Council has so far removed 44 bill boards from Cairo Road during the course of the week.
LCC Assistant Public Relations Manager Brenda Katongola tells Money FM News that the council expects to remove 150 billboards from the Central Business District.
Meanwhile, Ms Katongola says the council has revised the billboard fees for 2019, depending on the location.
“Some areas in the city prime areas and the advertising rates are higher and those in peri-urban areas the rates are lower. The Lusaka City Council is pulling down bill boards which are put up without permission from the local authority as a way of controlling Illegal placement of billboards that compromises public safety for both motorists and pedestrians,” she said.
“As a local authority we have an inventory of the agencies that are registered with the Council. We periodically carry out an exercise of removing billboards that are illegally placed in the city. This is in a bid to maintain the placement of billboards and basically to keep our city safe for motorists and members of the public.”
Ms Katongola has appealed to advertising agencies to start labelling their billboards to make it easy for LCC to monitor the placement of adverts.
She says the exercise and process will make it easy to identify who owns the adverts and note which ones are illegal.
“The process is ongoing. We are going to be removing billboards from Great East Road, Addis Ababa and the peri-urban areas. We have noticed that there are a lot of illegal billboards which are mounted in the city and it is high time that people started paying for every billboard. It is our responsibility as a local authority to maintain the beauty of the city and outlook of the city,” she added.
Ms Katongola is once again appealing to everyone who is advertising on billboards to start complying with the regulations of the council.
The LCC Assistant Public Relations Manager says those that are not registered should do so to avoid the losing revenue.
“We are advising all advertising agencies and companies that deal in advertising to start paying for billboard advertising in the city. The council charges an annual subscription fee which all advertisers must pay for in order to advertise. It is a legal requirement for everyone who is advertising. This will also help the council to maintain law and order in displaying of billboards in the city,” said Ms Katongola.
She said Lusaka City Council has the responsibility and the mandate to maintain the city for the safety of the motorists and the members of the public.

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