DOAS de-registers Outdoor Advertising Agencies over N2.1b debt

The Department of Outdoors Advertisement & Signage [DOAS] has commenced de-registration of all Outdoor Advertising Agencies operating in Abuja, due to N2.1b debts owed the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration.

The agency has since commenced the pulling down of signages and signposts across the territory.

Director of the agency, Dr. Babagana Adam, who disclosed this yesterday, while embarking on an enforcement exercise said: “These people are funny, even when we called for reconciliation and recovery, only 24 out of the 96 appeared. So, because of this poor response from the practitioners, we are now speculating that about 70 to 72 per cent of them are either not functioning or no longer practicing. 

“We are already considering pulling down and removing all the signages that are tagged. We’ve already noticed almost 147 of such within the FCT; we have so far removed 18 and are now looking at the possibility of getting heavy-duty equipment to remove other big ones.

“Last year, DOAS was able to generate N166m, as I am speaking with you, DOAS has hit the target of N194m.” 

However, a senior advertising Manager with Insight Communications, Mr. Joseph Uyah told The Guardian that the huge debts could be traced to sharp practices between some practitioners and dubious officials of DOAS.