Last year, one of the youngest agencies of Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) had in its business column ledger domiciled in the custody of FCTA corporate headquarters, a record of a historic, princely revenue figure.
A figure of over N1 billion was etched in for the Department of Outdoor Advertisement and Signage (DOAS), being proceeds from its regulatory activities in the FCT Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertisement and signage sector.
The creative successes of the agency are one of many recommending points of FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike’s administration which meticulously handpicked a dyed-in-the-wool DOAS man, Tpl. Akanimo Udoh, as Acting Director.
With the rising business profile of the nation’s capital, there was an imperative to birth a government agency to control, regulate and standardise outdoor advertisements.
The billboards on the streets, the signage on hotels, shops, restaurants, filling stations, and others are being controlled, standardised and regulated for the safety of humans and property.
Aside that, there was need to maintain the aesthetics of the Federal Capital City (FCC), ensure that the environment is protected and that billboards are not in substandard forms.
Through regulating these, the agency raises revenue for government.
But, which aspects of its activities are directly related to raking in this revenue? And how do such function?
While all aspects of the agency’s work are vital to overall accomplishment of the corporate objective, two areas are directly spot-on in driving revenue inflow.
These are enforcement and sensitization. Of course, the agency’s Director is the chief of every action undertaken by the agency.
Before the agency carries out enforcement actions -to compel erring business premises, personalities, or others to pay the officially stipulated fees-, a series of sensitization exercises are embarked upon to inform prospective clients of what the relevant statutes say concerning their responsibilities to government.
For each sensitization move, the Business Development Division, accompanied by the Public Relations unit staff, carries out an enlightenment exercise in the city of Abuja.
The staff members sensitize the general public, especially the first party outdoor advertiser and other outdoor stakeholders, on the need for them to pay their bills so that they can run their businesses smoothly, unhindered, and without having any issues with Enforcement unit,in case of refusal to pay up on statutory fees.
The sensitization is often carried out in a near-informal atmosphere, in an interactive manner with questions asked and responses given. The relaxed ambience of the sessions builds trust –a necessary ingredient to win clients over. Sometimes, jokes are mutually exchanged even as the serious objective of the session is not sacrificed. Smiling faces are a huge feature of the sessions.
This sort of friendly, as against hard-faced, belligerent posture, has proven to be a winning elixir which paved the way for more revenue generation for the department,and,by extension, FCTA.
The staff members also carefully inform clients of the statutory activities of the department, in case some do not know already.
The ground-softening sensitization is an anthem sung in the places pencilled down for the exercise such as hospitals, schools, filling stations, plazas, banks and others.
The enforcement stage only arrives when a business owner fails to imbibe the salutary effects of sensitization, viz compliance to payments.
Even then, the agency does not immediately enforce, except in exceptional circumstances.
It, first, officially writes to erring firms demanding that they comply by making stated payments, as prior communication to that effect had earlier been forwarded to them via fliers, letters or other durable communication means.
It is the failure to comply that triggers enforcement actions. Nonetheless, the period between the first communication and actual enforcement can take months,in many instances; this is, with a human face, to give the business ample time to do the needful.
When this move fails, then officials of the agency in their corporate-branded outfits drive in Toyota Hilux and other vehicles to the affected business premises which could be shopping malls, filling stations, and others, to carry out enforcement.
Usually, they are accompanied by a detachment of armed police personnel, to avert possible violence by adamant clients and keep the peace.
At the pinpointed business premises, the officials, security in tow, ask the staff and all other persons to leave immediately, then proceed to lock the place with a huge chain and place an ‘X’ mark in red colour on a visible part of the commercial facility.
The mark indicates that the client had violated government’s regulations and cannot reopen the place until it complies.
Most often, the clients respond civilly to the enforcement even as the police are ready to pounce, arrest,detain and prosecute those who choose to be heady.
Whenever enforcement occurs, it puts the business owner under tremendous psychological pressure as he/she is losing good money from shut operations; customers present during the ignoble shutdown often loudly complain and even lambast the ownership for irresponsibility,thus negatively affecting the corporate image; if the particular business had borrowed money from a financial institution, say, banks, for its operations –and which must be repaid -it knows the latter brook no excuses over inability to pay.
After mulling these unsavoury consequences, the ownership decides that the win-win option is to pay up and reopen shop for business.
To guard against corruption, cash is never paid to any staff of DOAS, but through designated official bank accounts that belong to FCTA.
The agency’s clients comprise three groups. One is the first party –any signboard or signage within five metres of a property or rented place.
Here, the client can be a hotel, mall, shop, filling station or other businesses. These deal directly with DOAS and pay into the designated FCTA official accounts.
Under first party too are mobile advertisement; anything mobile that carries around any brand being promoted.
There is the second party, which is mainly governmental: security agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGO) signage.
Then there is the third party. Here, a client engages a professional media practitioner who knows about marketing and advertisement to place the firm’s or individual’s adverts on billboards across streets. This aspect is outside five metres of business premises.
Ahead of placement, the media consultant visits the regulator, DOAS, as he/she (consultant) has big billboards of differing sizes, so that the agency can be apprised of the intended location, size and other details of the billboard while the consultant, in turn, gets information on costs, acceptability of the billboard(s) to the environment, and so on. For instance, one cannot be allowed to place a purely pornographic billboard in FCT.
Outreach formats equally attract payments to government. Here, firms can advertise products by organising dancers and conducting some sort of one-off shop; it is similar to mobile advertisement.
It takes strongly efficient and technically effective leadership, in addition to other intrinsic qualities, to harness all these aspects together and wield them all into a winning bunch,as done in the agency.
