County askaris pull down billboards owned by former City Hall boss Kisia
A campaign by the Nairobi County government to collect over Sh 100 million in unpaid rates saw the dismantling of over 30 lamppost adverts belonging to former Nairobi town clerk Philip Kisia.
Mr Kisia, who served from 2009 to 2012, has expressed interest in the Nairobi gubernatorial election on a Jubilee Party ticket.
According to a report by the revenue enforcement taskforce, Kisia owes City Hall Sh 647,720 in lamppost advertisement fees.
Mr Kisia’s outdoor advertising company, iQ Marketing, has been advertising on City Hall Way an upcoming India engineering exhibition meant to take place in Nairobi between November 9th and 11th 2016.
“The former Town Clerk has won a tender from KICC to advertise the Indee Kenya but he has not paid a cent to the county,” said a taskforce member who is not authorized to speak to the media.
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The county government removed the structures used to hold the banners in a bid to discourage the companies from returning them back.
In an operation that took the whole day, City Hall employees also removed the advertisement on Cardinal Otunga lane that advertised the Orange telecommunication company.
The telecommunication company has also contracted iQ Marketing to run their advertisement along the road outside their building.
Chairman of the operation revenue enforcement team, John Ntoiti, said that the taskforce has embarked on collecting accumulated revenue on three areas including land rates, rent and outdoor advertisement.
“Lamppost alone owe the city over Sh 40 million while billboards owe us Sh 66.64million,” said Dr Ntoiti.
Ntoiti said that the removing of the structures will also ensure that the advertisers pay promptly since it is expensive to mount it back to the pole.
