LUSAKA MAYOR WARNS OF STIFF PENALTIES FOR ILLEGAL ADVERTISERS… clarifies that the council’s crackdown is not targeting traditional healers or traditional medicine

LUSAKA MAYOR WARNS OF STIFF PENALTIES FOR ILLEGAL ADVERTISERS

….. clarifies that the council’s crackdown is not targeting traditional healers or traditional medicine

Lusaka…. Wednesday October 21, 2026 (SMART EAGLES)

Lusaka Mayor Chitambala Mwewa has warned individuals and businesses displaying illegal advertisements in the city that they risk stiff fines and other penalties as the Lusaka City Council (LCC) moves to intensify enforcement operations.

Mr Mwewa said the council’s crackdown is not targeting traditional healers or traditional medicine as part of Zambia’s cultural heritage, but was aimed at curbing unauthorised and misleading advertisements displayed on public infrastructure and in undesignated areas.

Mr Mwewa said the council had noted with concern remarks attributed to Traditional Health Practitioners Association of Zambia president Dr Rodwell Vongo regarding its enforcement measures against advertisements by traditional healers.

He clarified that the exercise was a regulatory measure intended to ensure compliance with council by-laws, maintain public order and cleanliness, and protect residents from deceptive promotional claims.

“The enforcement exercise should therefore not be construed as an attack on any profession, belief system or cultural practice. It is solely a regulatory measure to ensure compliance with established city by-laws and advertising standards,”  Mr Mwewa said in a statement made available to Smart Eagles

He said the council had a responsibility to remove illegal advertisements regardless of the individuals, businesses, organisations or professions involved.

Mr Mwewa added that the law must be applied fairly and consistently, noting that the council routinely removed unauthorised political campaign posters, commercial advertisements and other promotional materials.

He said it would be discriminatory to exempt advertisements from enforcement simply because they were presented as spiritual in nature.

“Our concern is not with spirituality or personal beliefs, but with the legality of the advertising medium and the nature of the claims made to the public,”  he said.

Mr Mwewa expressed concern over advertisements promising instant wealth, guaranteed success, miraculous solutions to personal problems and other extraordinary outcomes that could not be independently verified.

He warned that such claims could exploit vulnerable people seeking financial, social and personal breakthroughs by giving them false hope and misleading information.

The mayor also cited reported incidents involving young people allegedly misled into believing that wealth and success could be obtained through criminal or ritualistic acts, saying such cases highlighted the dangers associated with unchecked false claims and exploitation.

He said the council would intensify operations against illegal advertising across Lusaka, with offenders facing the removal of their materials, stiff fines, penalties and other enforcement measures under relevant laws and council regulations.

Mr Mwewa urged all advertisers to obtain the necessary approvals before displaying promotional materials within the city and to ensure that claims made in their advertisements were truthful, lawful and capable of being substantiated.