Christian Leaders in Zambia Call for Thorough Assessment of Billboard Mounting

"The damage caused by the falling of billboards may be overlooked but the victims feel the impact," the Christian leaders in Zambia caution.

 In the statement that was read out by CCZ General Secretary, Fr. Emmanuel Chikoya, the representatives of Christian leaders say the recent collapse of a billboard "serves as a timely warning to proactively begin to check how safe and secure the other billboards are." 

They further call upon Zambian authorities to pay particular attention to the positioning of billboards across the Southern African nation.

"A number of the billboards have been placed in very inconvenient and inappropriate locations, which cause obstruction to motorists thereby increasing the likelihood of road traffic accidents," they say. 

"Our considered view," the Christian leaders in Zambia say, "is that the billboard must not be erected and mounted anyhow." 

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In the November 23 statement, CCZ officials also advise victims of the billboard that collapsed during a downpour "to explore all legal avenues available to get compensation and hold all the owners as well as authorities accountable." 

On November 11, the Director of Engineering at the Lusaka City Council, Bright Banda, said preliminary investigations show that the collapsed billboard had been vandalized.

Mr. Banda said that during the investigations to ascertain the cause of the billboard's collapse, Lusaka City Council inspectors discovered that some nuts and bolts were removed from the billboard.

He also reported that the City Council had launched an inspection of billboards in Lusaka in view of bringing down those that are found to be unsafe.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.