Managing Director, ANSAA, Mr. Emecheta
By sunny A. David, Awka
The Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency (ANSAA ) says it will commence recruitment of ad-hoc personnel to assist in ensuring that all obituaries, marriage ceremonies, church banners as well as all other advertisement notices are paid for in the villages and communities.
Also, the agency is currently establishing offices in all the 179 communities of the 21 local government areas in Anambra state to ensure that its presence is established in all the nooks and crannies of the state for proper regulation of advertisement notices, signages and to enable local government information officers to synergise with the agency in the realisation of its objective.
The Managing Director of the agency, Mr. Jude Emecheta, who disclosed these developments to our correspondent in Awka, the Anambra State Capital, also revealed that the agency would introduce electronic advertising basically for aesthetics as well as to generate more revenue for the state government.
He explained that the State Internal Revenue Service was solely responsible for the collection of revenues but stressed that the advertisement and signage agency was obligated to issue out demand notices as well as ensure that revenues were remitted to government coffers through the board of internal revenue service.
According to Mr. Emecheta, the agency was currently plotting how it would change the advertising face of Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi, Ekwulobia, Ihiala and some other major cities in the state to ensure that they adhered strictly to the new electronic design the agency was planning to launch shortly, stressing that Anambra state had advanced from analogue to digital advertising.
The ANSAA Boss said another salient issue the agency would address was to ensure that market men and women paid for their signages.
Mr. Emecheta stated that the agency wouldn’t compel them to pay to the agency but they could pay to their market unions for onward remittance to the government’s coffers even as he pointed out that the agency would partner the state ministry of trade, commerce and market development to pursue the objective.
He further noted that control mechanisms were being worked out by the agency to ensure that the ad-hoc personnel that would be recruited to collect revenues on obituaries, marriage ceremonies, church banners and so on in the hinterlands, did not engage in shoddy deals to shortchange and subvert government.
