THE Harare City Council is facing a major revenue scandal as it emerged that the municipality is collecting negligible income from the billboard advertisements across the capital.
This emerged during a full council meeting at Town House last week where mayor Jacob Mafume directly questioned the finance department on earnings from outdoor advertising.
Mafume alleged systemic fraud and demanded immediate digital intervention.
“You are facilitating fraud,” Mafume said.
“We are losing a lot of revenue from advertising.
“It's a major revenue source for anybody, for any institution.”
In a response that sparked outrage from city fathers, council accountant Benjamin Nhukarume conceded that the collected amount was "not clear" and "insignificant."
“The amount is insignificant, Your Worship,” Nhukarume said.
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Mafume said potential revenues from advertising, if properly harnessed, could fund critical upgrades to water, sanitation, and road systems.
He lamented that the City of Harare appeared not to have a centralised system to account for the hundreds of billboards lining the city's major thoroughfares.
For years, the billboard industry has operated in a regulatory grey area, with numerous companies erecting structures without proper permits or consistent fee payments.
Previous council audits have hinted at millions in potential revenue lost annually.
Billboards of varying sizes and standards crowd intersections, often obscuring sightlines and creating urban clutter, with no clear public record of which is legally sanctioned.
Mafume placed direct blame on councillors and officials for perpetuating this failure.
He accused committees of habitually rejecting proposals to formalise and regulate the sector based on "phantom costs.”
“We have got the most billboards in the country,” Mafume said.
“A stadium alone with advertising can give you close to US$500 000 a month."
Mafume demanded the urgent implementation of a digital auditing system.
"No one knows how many billboards we have," he stated.
"I want a system so that you don't blame each other.
“The system will tell us that this billboard is not paid up...we go and cut it."
He argued that such a system would eliminate ambiguity, creating a transparent database of every advertising structure, its owner, and its payment status.
Mafume said this would allow for efficient revenue collection and enforcement.
