The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development (MOTID) has stopped accepting requests to put up billboards and grant permission for advertising on billboards along the main roads they oversee.
In a statement, MOTID said this decision was made because there has been an increase in unauthorized billboards that not only disrupt traffic flow but also obstruct road signs. Reads the statement:
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development has noted with concern the recent proliferation of illegal billboards along and within the road servitudes of the country’s trunk roads which are administered by the Ministry, through the Department of Roads, especially in urban centres.
Some of the billboards are precariously erected too close to the road, thus posing a menacing danger to the seamless flow of traffic.
Further, some billboards are randomly erected in such a way that they are now competing with road signs and are distorting the aesthetics, splendor and good looks of the urban environments.
The Ministry is empowered in terms of Section 48 of the Roads Act [Chapter 13:18] to regulate and restrict trade or any form of commercial activities along road servitudes of trunk roads under its administration.
In light of the above, no person shall, without the written permission of the Department of Roads, carry on any trade or expose, offer or manufacture for sale any goods on a road or in any area alongside a road within a distance of sixty meters from the boundary of a road or in any area within five hundred meters from any point of intersection without prior approval.
In view of the recent proliferation of the billboards, the Ministry wishes to notify members of the public that with immediate effect, it has suspended the processing of requests for the erection of billboards and the issuance of authority to advertise on billboards along and within the servitudes of the trunk roads under its control.
The Ministry undertakes to carry out a thorough audit of all the said billboards, with the view to declutter the road servitude spaces and remove all the illegal billboards for safer and trafficable roads as well as the good outlook of the country’s urban centers.
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