Social media was abuzz on Friday after a giant “Zuma Must Fall” billboard appeared at the top of Long Street, although the city moved quickly to declare that it was illegal, and that the matter had been referred for prosecution.
Pictures of the giant message, which took up the wall of six floors of the Overbeek block of flats, were shared and tweeted throughout the day on Friday.
Later, the city said that the ad, on the city’s biggest billboard, did not comply with the City of Cape Town’s Outdoor Advertising and Signage By-law”, and was illegal.
It had also been put up in contravention of the National Building Regulations and Standards Act.
“An application for the billboard in question was not received by the city,” the statement said on Friday, adding the matter had been handed over for prosecution.
Other than on Twitter and other social media, the incident also was mentioned on BBC’s Africa Live news site.
The head of the company responsible for renting out the billboard, one of the biggest in the city, did not return calls to his cellphone on Friday, and the identity of the person who paid for it remains unknown.
An insider in the billboard advertising business said that particular billboard cost R400 000 a month to rent.
“It’s roughly half the price of taking out a double page advert in the Sunday Times.”
The DA denied that it had any part in renting the billboard.
EFF leader Julius Malema also weighed in, saying that while he did not not know who was responsible, he applauded the sentiment expressed in the ad.
In a statement late yesterday, the provincial ANC laid the blame for the billboard at Mayor Patricia de Lille’s door.
“The DA supported the so-called campaign ‘Zuma must fall’ which had its largest gathering here in Cape Town (on December 16) - close to where the banner is draped on a building.
And it happened in a DA-run province and city,” the statement said.
It also quoted ANC provincial leader Marius Fransman as saying the owners of the building concerned, “and whoever paid for it, should account publicly (for) why they can fight the black president and not the biggest evil facing our society, namely naked intolerance fanned by hatred and race supremacists”.
Saturday Argus