Tshwane mayor orders forensic probe into false R777m water tanker claims

The City of Tshwane has fired back after claims it spent R777m on water tankers.

Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya said figures reported in the media were factually incorrect and had caused concern among the public.

“The claim that Tshwane has spent R777m on water tankers is based on unaudited purchase order values that include cancelled, duplicated or unprocessed transactions and it is misleading,” she said.

Moya said the records that were verified showed an expenditure of R22.9m in the 23/24 financial year and R441.1m in the 2024/25 financial year.

While the highest expenditure shown is R621m in total for 2024/25, this includes unpaid invoices from the previous financial year.

She added that the rise in water tanker costs reflected Tshwane’s response to an increase in water outages, which increased by 58% to more than 23,000 incidents in 2024/25.

“The evidence shows that more spending was a direct and proportionate response to the scale of water supply interruptions, not financial mismanagement and irregular procurement”, Moya said.

She added the administration had implemented measures to reduce water tanker dependence and to assist with the improvement of oversight.

“These include installing meters and GPS tracking on hydrants and tankers, expanding the city’s own tanker fleet to cut outsourcing costs, deploying municipal drivers for emergency water delivery and rolling out communal taps in informal settlements.”

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