The City of Tshwane has dismissed reports claiming it spent R777 million on water tankers.
Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya said the figures reported in the media were factually incorrect and had caused unnecessary 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 explained that verified records showed an expenditure of R22.9 million in the 2023/24 financial year and R441.1 million in the 2024/25 financial year.
While the highest expenditure shown is R621 million 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 grew 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 or irregular procurement,” Moya said.
She also noted that the administration had implemented measures to reduce dependence on water tankers and improve 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,” she stated.
