Last month, the Herald reported that the people around Klopper Street were surprised to see preparations for the new cell phone tower on the premises at the corner of Klopper and Froneman streets towards the end of last year. “The first thing we knew of it was when they started digging a hole in this yard. We were told that a Vodacom tower was going up,” several residents complained. At least one of the residents has been trying to fight the erection of the tower since 2015. About 40 signed a petition, opposing the proposed tower. Great was their shock, however, when a contractor for the cell phone giant arrived at the scene on Friday morning and started with the final preparations, despite their complaints, later that day. Although several residents turned up at the site to try and stop the tower from going up. By midday, however, it was clear that it would be futile. “We realised that the contractor was only trying to do his job and had nothing to do with the decision to put up the tower. It would be unfair to go off at him when we are angry with Vodacom and whoever ignored our objections in the first place,” one of the upset residents told the Herald. However, he warned that they would not stop their investigation into how their complaints came to be disregarded. “A legal process had to be fol- lowed for permission to erect the tower. Should we find that someone has tampered with the evidence gathered during the process, we will open a fraud case with the police,” he says. Many residents questioned why the tower could not have been erected elsewhere, like on the municipal property opposite the street. The municipality could even have received an extra income from the rental of the piece of land. The tower was finally erected in the dark and rain at around 20:00 the same evening. Although the Herald tried to contact the Vodacom spokesperson, Mr Themba Mathebula, in connection with the matter, no feedback was received. 
