Illegal billboards cost Blantyre City Council
The Blantyre City Council (BCC) continues to lose revenue through illegal billboards and sign posts that are erected in the city as one of the common methods of advertising goods and services.
The Council’s spokesperson, Anthony Kasunda, said this is the case because some billboards and sign post owners do not pay site rentals, thereby duping the city.
Although he could not specify the actual amount of money the council is losing, he said non-payment of billboard site rentals is affecting the council’s revenue collection.
“We have been removing billboards whose owners are not paying their rentals. We thought that we will give people a lesson to be paying for the sites but we have realised that we have a lot of sign posts and billboards in the city which are not in our database. That means that some people are stealing from the city,” Kasunda said.
In Blantyre, for instance, the site fee is K1,500 per square metre per month. This means that at that cost one pays a minimum site rental fee of K18, 000 per year.
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