Wireless broadband provider iBurst is asking the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to sanction the continued use of 30 towers that were illegally erected.
iBurst was found guilty last November of erecting 30 towers around Gauteng without following the proper environmental procedures. It entered a plea and agreed to pay R90 000 in total as a fine.
The company has since applied to the agriculture department to rectify the towers. However, this is an onerous process and requires that iBurst advertise in the press, and issue notices about the towers' construction to residents.
Residents of Craigavon, in northern Johannesburg, have previously complained that iBurst did not follow these requirements and did not inform the community before erecting a tower near a cemetery in the suburb, a claim that iBurst has denied.
Makoko Lekola, media liaison officer in the agriculture MEC's office, explains that the department's Environmental Management Inspectorate – also known as the green scorpions – registered 30 criminal cases with the police in the south Gauteng area.
The charges were laid against iBurst owner Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) for contravening a section of the 1989 Environmental Conservation Act. WBS was accused of unlawfully going ahead with erecting the masts, says Lekola.
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