NEWS ANALYSIS: MTN tackles unapproved cell masts in Durban
MTN is scrambling to retrospectively get approvals for 61 cell masts it built in Durban without following procedure several years ago, and says it will remove certain sites if need be. The group had originally agreed to a partnership with the municipality’s Disaster Management and Emergency Control Unit ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, whereby it would lease space on the department’s security camera poles for cell masts. "Years later, this partnership was shown to be misaligned with another department within the municipality — the Land Use Management Unit — in terms of the municipal approval processes," said Jacqui O’Sullivan, corporate affairs executive at MTN. While the disaster-management unit had initially said MTN would be exempt from municipal infrastructure approvals, it later backtracked on this, but said it would assume the process itself, according to documents seen by Business Day. Then, when the municipality ran out of camera poles in 2015, MTN said it would build and h...
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