The DA has welcomed the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU’s) investigation into R777m expenditure by the city of Tshwane in the 2024/25 financial year.
The party believes this is an important step towards uncovering the full extent of corruption and abuse by Tshwane’s alleged water tanker mafia.
This follows a Sunday Times investigation, which showed that companies linked to two senior ANC leaders — most notably ANC deputy mayor and MMC for finance, Eugene Modise — received R31.7m in water tanker contracts despite not owning a single water tanker.
In a statement, former mayor and DA mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink called out the ballooning of water tanker expenditure.
“In June 2024, the DA-led administration cancelled a water tanker tender before it could be awarded after material irregularities were identified. The DA administration also refused to pay water tanker operators who protested at Tshwane House while presenting invoices that had no purchase order numbers.”
The former mayor says the city experienced a “staggering 455% increase in water tanker expenditure in a single financial year”.
Brink accused Modise of acting in his own interests, with the support of senior ANC figures, “to keep public funds flowing into the hands of ANC-linked water tanker operators”.
The DA called on executive mayor Nasiphi Moya to act with speed and axe Modise in light of the damning allegations.
“The power to appoint and dismiss members of the mayoral committee resides in her office, and she should use that power immediately to remove Modise as MMC for finance,” Brink said.
“If she chooses not to act, she will expose herself as a mayor in title only — willing to enjoy the benefits of office while presiding over an administration that protects ANC corruption.”
The DA announced it would call for a debate during the upcoming ordinary council meeting to lay bare the facts regarding water tanker spending in Tshwane.
Meanwhile, ActionSA national chair Michael Beaumont hit back at the DA for its hypocrisy, claiming that the water tanker contracts in question were awarded under Brink as mayor in the 2023/24 financial year.
“The claim that R777m has been expended on water tankers is equally and demonstrably false. Of that, R179m paid in the 2024/25 financial year related to unpaid invoices incurred in the previous financial year under Brink’s mayoralty.”
Beaumont said it was ironic that Brink would point fingers for expenditure incurred under his own term.
“The DA collapsed the city’s finances to the point where the city was unable to pay its suppliers for work done worth R179m, which must now be hung around the neck of this new government as it goes about fixing the broken city it inherited.”
He criticised the DA for the mudslinging without recognising that the water tankers are a response to Brink’s party’s failure to provide water to communities for years under its reign.
“It has become laughable that Brink’s mayoral campaign has essentially become an exercise in finger-pointing at matters that are themselves the consequence of his own failures, and those of his party, in their misgovernance of the city of Tshwane.
“Water tankers are necessary because successive governments, including those of the DA, have failed for years to provide clean, safe drinking water to communities across the city,” Beaumont said.
ActionSA said it is concerned about allegations that water tanker contracts, awarded by DA administrations, may have benefited politically connected individuals.
“These allegations risk distracting from the important work of the multi-party coalition government in turning around the city. Action SA welcomes the ongoing investigation by the SIU into the broader water tanker mafia that has taken root in Gauteng, in particular, and urges severe consequences for those involved in nefarious activities.”
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