South Africans push back against 5G towers in their backyards

JOHANNESBURG: Tens of thousands of South Africans have written complaints to the government over a new policy that would let mobile networks build cellphone infrastructure like 5G towers on private land, which they say could devalue their property.

Since communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams gazetted the policy last week, dissent has poured in through the website Dear South Africa, which collects online submissions to challenge or co-form policies before they become law.

“There are concerns about radiation, about the resale value of properties and about this being used as an excuse to expropriate land without compensation,” the group’s founder, Rob Hutchinson, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation over the phone.

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, according to the World Bank.