Tshwane Adjustment Budget Hiding Hundreds of Millions in Water Tanker Spending

Statement by Ald Cilliers Brink – DA Tshwane Mayoral Candidate:

The ANC-led government in the City of Tshwane today tabled an adjustment budget that is based on carefully hidden information, half-truths and devious accounting. The Democratic Alliance (DA) rejects this adjustment budget, and proudly voted against it.

There are glaring issues with this adjustment budget, chief among which, is that it allocates no additional funds to water tankers, while internal reports to the budget steering committee state that the budget allocation for water tankers has been depleted, and that R125 million worth of unauthorised expenditure has already been incurred at the end of December 2025. This was with 6 months left in the financial year.

Not allocating additional budget to water tankers, but still continuing to spend on the item shows a clear intent to hide this spending from council and the public.

This follows R777 million spending on water tankers in the first year of the ANC-led administration, a 455% increase from the DA-led administration that preceded them.

The ANC further maintains that this adjustment budget is funded, this is false. Internal documents show that the City’s deficit has increased from R1,63 billion to R2,8 billion. A further R2,5 billion in creditors have been carried over from the previous financial year, effectively increasing the deficit to R5,3 billion.

This, while the City is R750 million behind in collections as per its ‘funding plan’ that by name is supposed to fund the budget.

The adjusted Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan (SDBIP) shows the City surrendering to not being able to deliver services as it has downgraded its ambitions in line with reality. Finance targets have all been adjusted downward, while National Treasury Circular 88 indicators on improving water, electricity and roads have been removed entirely from the SDBIP.

The DA will continue to fight against the financial mismanagement that is rampant within the City of Tshwane and has a plan to turn the situation around.