Water tanker operators seem to be the biggest beneficiaries of ANC-coalition mayor Nasiphi Moya’s first year in office. More than anything else the period will be bookmarked by a staggering increase in water losses and water tanker spending.
Between the 2024 financial year, when Tshwane was governed by a DA-led coalition, and the 2025 financial year, when the city was taken over by an ANC/EFF/ActionSA coalition, water tanker spending increased by 455% from R140 million to R777 million. This was revealed by a News24 exposé on Sunday.
The emergency supply of water to formalised areas by water tanker trucks is now the single biggest operational expenditure item of the City’s Department of Water and Sanitation. It even surpasses capital spending on pipe replacements.
In places that do have taps and potable water, tankers are only meant to be deployed if bulk suppliers restrict water and the City’s reservoirs run dry. This typically happens during load shedding or as a result of repairs and maintenance on major supply systems.
But in the past year the country has hardly had any load shedding. Despite the City trying to point to Rand Water maintenance issues, the fact is that the water utility has resolved a number of long-standing maintenance problems which in the past affected the Tshwane supply area. Neither has Gauteng had worse droughts than in previous years.
The one fundamental change that occurred between 2024 and 2025 is that Tshwane is now governed by a coalition led by the ANC, a party whose presence in government has been tracked by more and more water from tankers and less and less from taps.
In Hammanskraal, tankers have been deployed permanently for a number of years due to the non-potable quality of the water due to the pollution of the Apies River by the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant. In 2023, the City partnered with Magalies Water, and a package plant was built on the Pienaars River to give Hammanskraal residents potable tap water.
In fact, the launch of the first phase of this project in January 2025 should have reduced the City’s water tanker bill. Even taking into account the setbacks and delays on the project during the course of this year, it does not explain an increase in water tanker spending by the City.
If Tshwane does have a prolonged water emergency, it is entirely self-induced, if not carefully orchestrated. In the same year as the ANC takeover and the blowout spending on water tankers, the City’s water losses increased from 34% to 39%. The losses are mainly due to unattended leaks, which in turn lead to taps running dry more often.
What accounts for more leaks? In part the money taken away from water maintenance teams in order to fund extra water tanker expenditure. In her first adjustment budget as mayor, Nasiphi Moya recommended a 103% increase on watchman security services and a 64% increase on water tankers.
But even this wasn’t enough to cover all the water tanker invoices the City eventually paid in the 2025 financial year. As a result, most of this money will have to be classified as unauthorised expenditure. Aside from more water consumption and water losses, there is a good chance that some of these invoices might be fraudulent.
By law, unauthorised expenditure must be investigated. But the investigation has to go further than just a box ticking exercise. After years of suspicion that the ANC and its proxy parties have interests in the water tanker business, it is now necessary to trace the flow of municipal money to and from the companies on Tshwane’s database of service providers.
Based on the News24 exposé, the DA has written to Tshwane municipal manager Johann Mettler to ask for the most comprehensive internal investigation possible. Because of the risk of internal interference in such an investigation, we are also reporting the matter to the Public Protector as a potential form of maladministration.
There has to be a reckoning for the hundreds of millions that could have been spent on giving people clean water in their taps, and spent on water tankers instead. In the meantime, Mayor Moya will have to give her own account of what exactly has happened under her watch.