Cell towers rent shock
MTN shakes the pole with revelation it has hired dozens already
ETHEKWINI Municipality has rented out dozens of towers in neighbourhoods across the metro to cell provider MTN, the company confirmed yesterday.
For months the city has given vague answers to residents concerned about the towers.
MTN said it had embarked on a major network upgrade in eThekwini over the past 18 months, piggybacking on the city’s infrastructure.
Rent would be paid to the city for the use of the municipal poles, installed by the eThekwini disaster management and emergency control unit.
This comes months after the eThekwini Municipality and MTN refused to provide clarity on the full description and scope of the project, which has had residents fuming at the sudden installation of “cellphone towers” in their suburbs.
Critics complained there had been no consultation about the location of the towers or clear explanation about what they would be used for.
“Demand for improved speed and connectivity is increasing in tandem with the trends around social media streaming and downloading movies over various platforms. The requirement for more 4G/LTE capacity is therefore required as we strive to enhance the lives of even more people that rely on our services on a daily basis,” said Giovanni Chiarelli, chief technology and information officer at MTN SA, yesterday.
With the increased demand for data capacity, MTN said they had entered into an infrastructure-sharing agreement with the council.
“The infrastructure-sharing agreement began in 2010 and is no different to other sharing agreements MTN and other third parties have with one another to share infrastructure. The aim is to alleviate the need for more structures in close proximity to one another, which then becomes unsightly,” said Chiarelli.
This agreement, said head of eThekwini’s disaster management and emergency control unit, Vincent Ngubane, was not unique to MTN.
“In fact, the city has or has had similar agreements with other telecommunications providers,” he said, explaining in the joint statement that the city was rolling out its CCTV network which included the installation of more camera poles.
As the two entities had similar objectives, said Chiarelli, it “made sense” to share the infrastructure.
“eThekwini municipality has the camera poles on their land and manages the entire process.
“MTN, in turn, uses these poles to install their equipment. Additionally, MTN in some instances placed their equipment on the camera poles prior to eThekwini disaster management installing their CCTV cameras. This was due to eThekwini disaster management not having stock of the CCTV cameras,” said Chiarelli.
This, he believed, was the reason that led to the unfortunate “incorrect perception” residents had that the towers were only for cellular functions.
The rental income, said MTN, would be of good use to the city.
“The financial reward assists eThekwini disaster management with expenses, rolling out and the operating cost of having a CCTV system. MTN, which takes its role as a good corporate citizen very seriously, has followed the guidance of the municipality in deploying its network infrastructure on these camera poles. Placing the highest priority on quality, its equipment is all Icasa-approved.
“Furthermore, MTN follows World Health Organisation standards and is guided by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection with regard to electromotive force. MTN has an independent company that audits all of its installations to meet these standards,” said Chiarelli.
Why no public consultation was carried out, or why no public information sessions were held, has still not been answered by the municipality. When The Independent on Saturday requested confirmation of MTN’s facts, and how much rent was being paid per pole to the city, publications manager at the city, Gugu Sisilana, said: “The allegations contained in your e-mail will be referred to the relevant unit for investigation.”
REGULAR parties and functions were nothing new for prisoners and “happened all the time” but on the opposite side of the prison bars, officials bore the brunt of what they labelled “poor management”.
After the publication of leaked images on social media and in newspapers, of scantily-dressed women dancing with prisoners at the Johannesburg Medium-B prison, Westville prison staff said much like that prison, big parties were normal at the prisons.
“When it comes to Youth Day, Women’s Day, or other such days, there’s always some kind of party or event to mark the occasion. There’s always a budget for these events, meanwhile us officials do the work, management seems to not care about our needs,” said a correctional services officer, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.
Earlier this week, images of dancers sporting knee-high boots and lacy lingerie, with their hands all over a prisoner, were leaked and went viral on social media, and were published in newspapers around the country.
An event was held to mark Youth Day at the Johannesburg Medium-B prison, but correctional services officials claim they did not know dancing or “stripping” was part of the programme.
More than a dozen officials at the prison, commonly known as Sun City, face suspension.
“When we saw these images, it’s nothing new, we are used to seeing wrong things being done at the prison. Special occasions are held for taxi bosses who are in prison, they are allowed full contact and it’s as though they run the place,” said the official.
One of the issues they faced, he said, was the lack of speed in paying out overtime allowances.
“If we work overtime in January, we will be lucky to see the money in July. It is not fair. Prisoners easily access money, yet we must wait so many months for what is rightfully due to us,” he said.
The lack of timeous pay, he said, sometimes led to some correctional officers accepting bribes to let certain contraband items get through the security checks.
“Cellphones can be sold to prisoners for anything between R100 to R1 000. Whoonga, mandrax and dagga can get through, and the bribe money is easy and immediate. It does not justify anything, but it’s wrong that officials must suffer because the department does not have its act together,” he said.
Uniforms have also not been issued for the past three years.
“We work in the prison and it’s not the cleanest environment, our uniforms get dirty yet we are required to wear presentable clothing. The department, while having money for parties and events, does not issue us with new uniforms. How are we supposed to be taken seriously by the offenders and the community if we cannot present ourselves properly?” he said.
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) is aware of the concerns.
“We have taken these issues to management and we are working together on it, we are just as frustrated as the officials about the state of things,” said Popcru KZN secretary Nthabaleng Molefe.
Some officials belong to the Public Services Association (PSA) and KZN manager Claude Naiker said they were busy liaising with the department on revised shift rosters, which had implications for working overtime.
“We are currently negotiating on these issues and hope to have a resolution in the coming week. We need to find a suitable shift management system so that staff are satisfied,” he said.
The KZN Department of Correctional Services had, by last night, not responded to questions about the claims.