Tan (left) and other city councillors looking over illegal banners, bunting and advertisements that have been removed from the streets by MBPP. — CHAN BOON KAI/The Star
Penang Island City Council (MBPP) has removed over 3,000 illegal banners, bunting and advertisements from its streets this year.
City councillor Tan Soo Siang said MBPP had taken down 1,082 bunting, 887 banners, 247 loan shark-related advertisements, 1,009 other types of advertisements and five small signboards up to June.
She said mobile numbers of repeat offenders had been given to Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for termination.
“The city council has been removing between 5,000 and 10,000 advertisements put up without permits each year.
“Most of these banners consist of advertisements related to vacancies, unlicensed money lending (ah long), property sales and rental, tuition as well as pest control.
“These are eyesores. Some of them even returned to put up more after the earlier ones were removed by the city council’s enforcement team under MBPP (Advertising) By-laws 2000,” she said during a press conference at Penang City Hall in Jalan Padang Kota Lama.
Tan said to curb the problem, MBPP had sought assistance from MCMC under Section 263(2) of Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 to terminate telephone numbers found on illegal advertisements.
“This year, we identified 16 phone numbers which are repeat offenders.
“The numbers were found in advertisements from real estate agents, those offering tuition and by loan sharks.
“Six owners of the advertisements were found to be still active despite enforcement action.
“We have issued compounds to them and their phone numbers have since been terminated,” said Tan, who is the city council’s licensing and public health alternate chairman.
She said MBPP might issue a RM250 compound for each illegally placed advertisement.
She added that over 200 of such compounds had been issued in 2024.
