HARARE City Council (HCC) recently showed an interest in reviving its revenue from billboards and is urging billboard owners to start paying up their rental arrears or risk losing them.
The billboards rentals potential has been estimated at US$19 million per annum.
Recent Finance and Development Committee minutes chaired by the Director of Works, Isiah Chawatama, revealed that HCC would take steps to revive its billboards cash cow in order to increase revenue inflows into its coffers.
“HCC will take urgent measure to revive billboards and other key revenue streams to ensure the immediate inflow of revenue,” read the minutes.
Council also noted that its billboards revenue stream should be properly structured in order to maximise revenue collection.
Chawatama also said all billboard owners who failed to pay up their rental arrears would see them pulled down, adding that lease agreements would in future be entered into between the HCC and billboard owners before re-erection of the pulled down in-arrears-billboards.
Last year, an audit of billboards conducted in greater Harare showed that poor management of billboard records by the city had cost it thousands of dollars as some companies put up billboards which they, however, never paid for.