Tshwane Municipality disputes that it spent R777m on water tankers in one year

The Tshwane Municipality is disputing that it has spent R777 million on water tanks in one year alone.

The figure comes from a recent News24 article, which has sparked outrage over the city’s spending.

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The capital’s coalition government held a media briefing in Pretoria on Thursday, where it said the quoted figure was not accurate.

The Tshwane Municipality said the R777 million figure did not reflect the amount of money it spent on water tankers during the previous financial year, 2024/2025.

It said the figure also included accruals from the previous year of R179 million and disputed invoices of R156 million.

Tshwane Mayor Nasiphi Moya said that when these figures were excluded, the actual expenditure for water tankers in the last financial year is R441 million.

"Which represents a 36% increase from the previous year, corresponding directly with the 50% increase in water outages during the same period."

Data presented during Thursday’s media briefing shows R98 million of the total water tanker spend for the previous year was processed in the first quarter, July to September 2024, before the current administration took office.