City to remove 332 billboards

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration will remove 332 billboards starting Monday, the head of the City Revenue Office said yesterday. Reasons range from them having expired licenses to poor condition.

"Most of the billboards are in East and West Jakarta," Wahab Rachmatsjah said.

Billboards in poor condition, he said, could endanger passersby in a strong wind.

He called on the owners of flimsily set up billboards to pull them down voluntarily, within three days, as of yesterday, or have them pulled down by the city authorities.

From April 1995 to March 1996, the city administration removed 27,080 billboards and street banners from the streets, and 15,183 from April to November 1996. (ste)