Owners of unauthorised and substandard billboards mounted along the Spintex Road in Accra have been given 14 days to remove them or face the necessary sanctions.
The action is in line with warnings by the National Road Safety Commission in August this year to advertisers to remove billboards that had been improperly positioned along roads as they impeded vision thereby contributing to road accidents.
Notices for the removal of the billboards were yesterday pasted by members of the Committee for the Removal of Substandard Billboards, comprising representatives of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Advertisers Association of Ghana (AAG).
The affected billboards, according to the NRSC, included substandard ones that had been mounted by advertising agencies and were mostly situated in curves and on road intersections blocking the view of pedestrians and motorists.
The notices
During a tour by the NRSC and the Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of some major streets in Accra yesterday, it was observed that a number of the billboards did not meet the regulations and standards for erection of signs and billboards on the road.
For instance, Section 4.15 of the Advertising Specifications for Outdoor Signs in Ghana (GS847:2010), states, “No billboard shall be mounted within a radius of 30 metres from the centre of an intersection”.
However, at a roundabout on the Spintex Road behind the Accra Shopping Mall, it was observed that a three-dimensional (3D) advertising billboard that had the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle had been mounted in the centre of the roundabout.
Assemblies must comply
It also emerged that some assemblies had granted permits for the siting of some of the unauthorised billboards.
The Officer in charge of Education at the MTTD, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Alexander Kwaku Obeng, said it was sad that although there were existing laws on the mounting of billboards along the roads, personnel at the metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies who were in charge of the issuance of permits for the erection of billboards did otherwise.
“If you are eager to assign permits for people to post outdoor advertising then it lies within you to ensure that they do it appropriately in line with the Road Traffic Regulation LI 2120, the Ghana Highway Authority Act 540, and the Ghana Standards Authority procedure GS 847 and it is in the remit of the assembly officer to have known this and not the police, not the NRSC, not the Advertisers Association of Ghana, and of course not the Department of Urban Roads,” he said.
Observations
Mr Solomon Kweku Ayeh from the Ghana Standards Authority observed though some of the billboards complied with the rules and regulations in terms of height and distance; they still posed a threat to motorists and had to be removed.
For his part, Mr Abdul Majeed Adams of DDP Advertising said there was an influx of advertising agencies and most of them did not comply with the directives on outdoor advertising.
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