Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday admitted the government was making use of illegal billboards and said the situation would be rectified – but he shifted the blame to private contractors.
According to regulations, however, the client making use of an illegal billboard – in this case the Office of the Prime Minister – is still breaking the law and is obliged to remove the publicity material.
Times of Malta on Saturday revealed that a number of the government’s publicity campaigns were using billboards around the country that have been served with a Mepa enforcement notice. The latest one is about the lower energy tariffs.
The OPM has so far refused to give the number of such billboards or to say how they were contracted and who is being paid for their use.
Asked yesterday what the government intended to do about the matter, given that it is sending the wrong message, Dr Muscat said he was looking into it.
“The situation has to be rectified but this is the responsibility of the private contractor,” he said. “We rent out billboards from the private market but we will insist with the contractor that he has to follow the rules.”
Asked whether this meant he would give an order for all the material on illegal billboards to be taken down, Dr Muscat replied: “I will give an order to make sure that the contractor observes the law.”
A senior Mepa official said companies that advertise on illegal billboards are also liable to enforcement action “and the government is no exception”.
Legal Notice 191/99 stipulates that companies choosing to rent space on billboards that do not hold a valid Mepa permit are subject to the same enforcement action being taken against the billboard and site owner.
“Companies advertising on illegal billboards are being held responsible to ensure that advert is removed, otherwise the company will be billed for all the expenses the planning authority incursto remove the billboard,” the official said. Most of the illegal billboard structures being used by the government are the same ones that had been erected before the last general election and used by the Labour Party for its campaign.
Instead of taking them down, as stipulated by law, tens of billboards were left in place and used commercially, many without the necessary permits.
Since the election, they have been used repeatedly by the government and some have continued to be used by the Labour Party for its political campaigns – right now they are about the European elections.