Billboards used by the Labour Party for the electoral campaign have not only remained in place but are also being used illegally for commercial purposes, the Times of Malta is informed.

At the same time, billboards used by the Nationalist Party are still littering the roads, even though they were to be removed within a week of the publication of the electoral result.

Advertising agents who contacted this newspaper expressed their concerns over the situation, fearing a repetition of what happened after the 2013 election.

90 structures stayed on the roads for years and were used illegally

“Labour broke all rules after the 2013 elections with about 90 billboard structures used for that election remaining on the roads for years and used for commercial purposes illegally,” an agent who also owns legal billboards told this newspaper.

“We hope that, this time round, we won’t have a repetition of what we had to suffer for years and that all election billboards are removed immediately. We have already observed that some of Labour’s billboards are being used for commercial adverts, and this is illegal. We hope that this is immediately stopped,” another frustrated advertising agent said.

Following the 2013 election, the PN cleared all its billboard structures, but the ones used by Labour – a donation from Aiken services, a private company – remained in place and were used for commercial purposes.

Apart from the commercial advertising, the same structures carried advertising by government agencies for their own promotional campaigns.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat admitted that the government was using illegal billboards and promised the situation would be rectified.

However, nothing was done until 2016, when the PN started a new billboard campaign on the Panama debacle.

At that juncture, the government issued new billboard rules that said political parties were only allowed to put up billboard structures during an electoral campaign and had to remove them within a week from the publication of the result.

However, the Labour Party has put up new billboards that show the Prime Minister thanking the public for returning him to power, while others contain commercial adverts.

Questions sent to Labour and the PN asking when they would be removing their structures had not been replied to by the time of writing.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com