Further to the update we published regarding the meeting held with Dark Fibre Africa, their Main- Contractor,and other interested and affected parties, please find below a summary of the meeting which took place with
MTN who are similarly responsible for the installing fibre optic infrastructure in and around Hilton.
The meeting was set up following numerous breakages to various services, notably water pipelines, which
resulted in loss of water supply for extended durations on more than one occasion.
Committee member Colin Johnston once again convened the meeting on behalf of the HRA with other
representatives in attendance being: Clinton Potgieter (MTN), and uMngeni Ward 7 Caretaker Councillor Pam
Passmoor.
The following is a summary of what was discussed:
MTN has carried out the installation of fibre optic cable in parts of Hilton over the last few weeks. The
current work programme is however now complete;
The system adopted by MTN when a breakage occurs is to report this to the local service provider, in this
case the District Municipality. The arrangement apparently is for the local authority to respond and carry out
the repair.
It was pointed out that such an arrangement is completely unrealistic. It is unlikely these days that a
municipality would have the resources to respond immediately to a service breakage. Greater efficiency and
effectiveness would be achieved if MTN appointed their own specialists to be on stand-by to deal with such
emergencies. This could be done quite easily by agreement with the local authority and compliance with
their conditions. MTN agreed to adopt a procedure such as this in future;
MTN advised that their procedure provides for local residents to be informed by means of leaflets delivered
to each household. This does not appear to have happened in this case. It was suggested that a better
approach would be to inform local councillors and residents associations, and to use social media platforms
available to them ;
MTN carry out the work with information on existing services based on wayleaves obtained from the local
authority. It was suggested that the procedures adopted by MTN to locate and protect existing services and
amenities are inadequate and that more detailed and extensive preliminary investigations should be carried
out;
It was recorded that on a positive note the contractors appointed by MTN were at all times polite and
cooperative;
The local opinion is that this is an engineering project and therefore requires the application of conventional
engineering design, construction and contractual procedures;
It was requested that MTN follow up with information about the whole fibre optic installation in this area
and in particular how and when people could have access to the system.