THE Hibiscus Coast Municipality is raking in thousands of rands from six giant billboards that were erected in May 2010 on property that it doesn’t own.
However, even though the municipality is ‘illegally’ selling services on the Department of Transport’s land, HCM still seems to be short changing itself (as well as ratepayers) by signing a badly thought out contract with a private outdoor advertising company.
“HCM did not have the knowledge required to make the contract and were ripped off,” said a source who is a recognised expert on signage, but asked not to be named.
The real winner seems to be the advertising company which has managed to get HCM to sign the contract giving them the sites for 10 years. Plus the municipality has discounted their normal tariff for outdoor signage (about R50 000) by 50 percent and there is no provision in the contract for escalation.
The advertising company’s charges to its advertisers are not known, but based on the industry norm they could have made about R1-million so far.
The billboards on the main road through Port Shepstone and Shelly Beach were erected in terms of the Special Measures Act to promote the World Cup in 2010 with a council resolution reserving the right to remove them shortly afterwards.
Four years later they are still there in spite of a written directive from the Department of Transport, and various officials who were responsible at the time have left.
The Department of Transport claimed that it did not sanction the billboards. The Herald was shown an email from the chief engineer, Wlodek Gorny, written in June 2010.
It reads ‘despite HCM’s apparent concern with sign pollution, they choose to continue to approve even more signs and billboards adding to the problem.’
‘No billboard may be erected along the entire provincial road without prior written permission of this department.’
In another email, Mr Gorny said HCM had no right to approve the erection of the billboards, and added that the billboards should be removed.
When the municipality was asked for comment HCM spokesman Nomusa Zulu, said the municipality would have to investigate the issue as it dates back several years ago.
“The officials who were involved have now left the municipality. However the issue has been brought to our attention and the municipality will investigate the matter and a response will be forwarded in due course,” she said.
