 mayoral candidate for Tshwane, Cilliers Brink, has accused the African National Congress (ANC)-led coalition government in the city of presiding over what he called the "liquidation of the state", one year after taking power through a partnership with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ActionSA.){kind=link}
By Johnathan Paoli
The Democratic Alliance (DA) mayoral candidate for Tshwane, Cilliers Brink, has accused the African National Congress (ANC)-led coalition government in the city of presiding over what he called the “liquidation of the state”, one year after taking power through a partnership with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ActionSA.
Speaking in Pretoria this week, Brink said the ANC’s return to power in the metro had “cemented a system of political insiders feeding off public money at the expense of ordinary residents”.
Brink contrasted what he called “the small and well-to-do-elite…cadre class” with ordinary residents.
“No government can serve both of these groups. It either satisfies the ever-growing appetites of the political insiders or delivers to the country. It cannot do both. Corruption is not just bad in and of itself; it leads to the breakdown of services, pushes up municipal bills, and drives away investment and jobs.
“The ANC has come to represent the political insiders, a class of ANC cadres in government and in business, which produce less and less for the benefit of the people and consume more and more at the public’s expense. If there is a zero-sum game in South African politics, it is between this cadre class and everyone else,” said Brink.
His comments come a year after the ANC, supported by the EFF and ActionSA, took control of Tshwane, ousting the DA-led coalition that had governed the city since 2016.
The DA had warned at the time that the coalition deal would open the door to “a return of the tender system that crippled Tshwane’s administration before”.
According to Brink, those fears have now materialised.
He said the most glaring example of the decline was in the city’s water and sanitation management.
“In 2024, Tshwane spent R170 million on water tankers in formalised areas. With the takeover of the ANC/EFF/ActionSA coalition, water tanker spending went up to a staggering R500 million. Well, that’s what the city says. We have reason to believe that the spending is far more,” he said.
In the financial year that Dr.Nasiphi Moya took the helm as mayor, said Brink, Tshwane spent more money on providing water tankers to communities that do have formal water reticulation than ever before in the city’s history.
He accused the current administration of enriching politically connected contractors at the expense of residents’ right to clean water.
He said reports from Hammanskraal suggested that tanker operators, paid by the city to deliver free water, were instead selling it back to desperate residents.
The DA’s former coalition had initiated the Hammanskraal clean water project and pursued legal action against the so-called “Rooiwal Five”, officials accused of awarding an irregular tender to politically-connected businessman Edwin Sodi.
Brink claimed that the new administration had lost interest in pursuing the case or blacklisting Sodi’s companies.
Under Moya, Tshwane’s budget for security watchmen services rose from R307 million in 2024 to R565 million this year.
Brink said this spending was not translating into safety or asset protection.
He also alleged that an investigative report sitting on Moya’s desk implicates her deputy, ANC Finance MMC Eugene Modise, in benefiting from one of these security contracts.
“She says she’s waiting for the Speaker to table the report; the Speaker says he’s waiting for a legal opinion.
“And while the ball is being passed from one member of the ANC/EFF/ActionSA coalition to another, Modise remains in place as finance MMC. This is the political leader who is meant to be fighting corruption in the tender system in Tshwane and driving the city’s financial recovery. Despite the money he continues to receive from Triotic Protection Services, he cannot even pay the municipal bill owed on property leased by one of his other companies,” said Brink.
Brink said that under Moya’s administration, water losses had increased to 39%, “the highest they have ever been”.
Even after major debt write-offs, the city’s debtor book has grown, he said. And rather than implementing cost-saving measures or reforms, a city cleansing levy was introduced to cover the budget shortfall, but actual spending on city cleansing has not increased.
Brink said the ANC’s governing partners, particularly ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, had “become proxies for the cadre system they once denounced”.
He condemned what he called “a manufactured image of delivery” promoted through social media campaigns and paid public relations.
Brink said that the DA would continue to expose maladministration and prepare for the 2026 Local Government Elections.
The City of Tshwane had not responded to Brink’s remarks at the time of publication.
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