The ANC-governed Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality’s plans to offer free Wi-Fi to its residents has left bad blood in its wake. The opposition party DA has described the plans by the ANC as “an electioneering ploy” and told City Press newspaper that “it is an idea that the city stole from its own mayoral campaign”.
Residents will have access top 1 000MB of data a month and, through the city’s partnership Spectrum Communication Specialists, they will be offered substantially lower data and internet voice calling rates once their free data is depleted. Their voice call are expected to cost as little as 20c/minute.
City Press said the service is already available in parts of Walmer, KwaMagxaki, KwaNobuhle and Kruisrivier.
The metro’s executive mayor, Danny Jordan, told the newspaper that the council wanted to make the metro a smart city by using some of the 2010 World Cup infrastructure Nelson Mandela Bay received.
The DA’s mayoral candidate Athol Trollip told the newspaper that although the plans by the metro were good; it was interesting that the ideas expressed during DA’s mayoral campaign are now being rolled out by the ANC.
“It just shows that the DA can get things done, even as the opposition, let alone in government. We live in a technological age, so it’s the right thing to do. I am inspired by the fact that we are getting the ANC to do something. But we are looking forward to doing it properly ourselves in two months time,” Trollip told the newspaper.
The residents of the City of Tshwane and City of Johannesburg are already enjoying the benefits of being connected to the internet through public free Wi-Fi.
The full report is available in this week’s City Press.
