Lesufi accuses DA of opportunism over R777m Hammanskraal water tanker billboard

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi has accused the Democratic Alliance of political opportunism after the party erected a billboard in Hammanskraal accusing the ANC and ActionSA of spending R777 million on water tankers in Tshwane. The billboard, unveiled ahead of the local government elections, urges residents to “Take back your city from water tanker mafia! Vote DA”.

Lesufi rejects DA attack as opportunistic

Responding to the billboard, Lesufi questioned the DA’s record on water tankers while it previously governed Tshwane and described the party’s campaign as an attempt to score political points.

“They are being opportunistic. The water tankers of Tshwane, the current contract of water tankers, who appointed them? It’s the DA. They were running that city,”

Lesufi said.

Lesufi also said municipalities were shifting away from relying on privately owned tankers to owning municipal tankers.

“If you go to Tshwane, we have changed that. We have water tankers that are owned by the municipality, no longer owned by individuals, including in Ekurhuleni and in Johannesburg. We are working towards that.”

Accusations and counter-accusations

The DA’s billboard in Hammanskraal highlighted the R777 million figure the party said the ANC and ActionSA spent on water tankers during their first year in government in Tshwane. DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink said a package plant that would have supplied Hammanskraal with clean drinking water was nearly completed under the previous DA administration but was not finished after the ANC and ActionSA took over. Brink linked that failure to the interests of those benefiting from water trucking and said,

“They did this because protecting water tanker interests was more important than delivering water to residents.”

Brink further alleged that companies linked to ANC officials collectively received close to R32 million from water tanking and referred to the Madlanga Commission in describing what he called Tshwane’s “mafia-style tender-capture”.

Lesufi points to DA’s past control

Lesufi pushed back by pointing to the DA’s prior control of Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg, saying the ANC did not launch billboard campaigns when those municipalities experienced problems under DA administration. He cited the Hammanskraal cholera outbreak that claimed lives in 2023 and mentioned the GladAfrica controversy.

“It is just opportunistic and a stance that the DA now have run out of ideas. They have started to be smooth talkers. They have said everything that they think is correct, when they themselves have created this problem,”

he said.

Brink responds to Lesufi

Brink criticised Lesufi’s response and said the premier should not take the moral high ground over the Hammanskraal water crisis, referencing Lesufi’s earlier comment that he booked into a hotel to shower and bathe during water outages. Brink said the Gauteng government had not done enough to help Hammanskraal residents and that the DA would complete the project it had started.

“Instead of trying to take the moral high ground, he should look at what his government could have done to help the people of Hammanskraal, and not water tanker mafia bosses.”

On the billboard, Lesufi dismissed the DA’s message as evidence the party had exhausted its ideas.

“Their latest billboard is nothing else. They know now that no one believes them, because all the things they are saying they are going to do, they failed to do them,”

he said.

What’s at stake

Both parties framed the dispute around service delivery and project completion in Hammanskraal, with the DA presenting the billboard as a call to end dependence on water tankers and the ANC, through Lesufi, accusing the DA of opportunism and pointing to its own claims of municipal reforms away from private tankering.