Court papers expose ‘infrastructure-sharing arrangement’ as fictitious
Counsel for eThekwini further recommended that the applicants should rather serve MTN with an interdict to get all the illegal masts taken down.
PAPERS presented in the Durban High Court on Friday, 23 October revealed that the eThekwini Municipality had never undertaken an ‘infrastructure-sharing arrangement’ with cellular service provider MTN, as both city management and MTN had previously claimed.
This ‘infrastructure-sharing arrangement’ had been the basis on which MTN had erected 123 cell masts across Durban during 2016 and 2017 without complying with town planning regulations.
In the Durban High Court before Judge Johan Ploos van Amstel, counsel for eThekwini Municipality stated that the city had never undertaken such an agreement.
Therefore all the cell masts built under this ‘arrangement’ had been irregular.
This admission followed an application brought by residents of the city and the Durban Anti-Cell Mast Alliance (DACMA), asking the courts to set this ‘infrastructure-sharing arrangement’ aside.
Counsel for eThekwini further recommended that the applicants should rather serve MTN with an interdict to get all the illegal masts taken down.
The court case was the culmination of four years of delaying tactics by the city and MTN, who eventually admitted that the billion-Rand infrastructure roll-out of the 123 cell masts was the result of a ‘misalignment’.
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Niki Moore, spokesperson for DACMA, said: “It makes you think, when the city and MTN erected several dozen cell masts, worth hundreds of millions of Rands, as a result of a ’misaligment’ and then spent four years denying that anything is wrong. Then only, when the matter is brought to court, are they compelled to admit that the building of all these cell masts was based on a non-existing agreement, without a shred of documentation.”
The matter was heard on Friday and judgment has been reserved. Moore said: “The next step in the case is to get an interdict for MTN to take down all the illegal masts. The advocate is busy with that now.”
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