Municipality spends three times more on water tankers than fixing its infrastructure

A municipality in the Free State has spent over R14 million on water tankers, more than three times what it spent on infrastructure repairs.

The Setsoto municipality, home to over 120,000 residents, is a key part of South Africa’s agricultural sector.

The area is home to the majority of the country’s cherry farms and also has light industrial and manufacturing operations.

The municipality’s annual report showed worrying trends in the delivery of vital water services to its residents.

The municipality spent approximately R14 million on water tankers to provide services to residents.

The area has been using water tankers since 2016, when they were deployed due to ongoing drought conditions in the province.

Since their initial use, the municipality has increasingly relied on the tankers to continue providing water to several areas.

In the 2024 financial year, the Setsoto municipality spent approximately R4.6 million on water tankers, which increased to R14 million the following year.

This represents an increase of roughly 204% in how much the municipality spends on tankers to deliver water.

While this spending continues to increase, the municipality is failing to allocate its budget properly for water system maintenance.

In the 2025 financial year, the municipality set a budget of R8.2 million for maintaining water infrastructure, but spent only 53% of it.

The lack of spending demonstrates that the local government failed to properly plan maintenance programs or identify issues in its infrastructure.

Instead of identifying these challenges and using its budget to find solutions, the municipality continued to rely on water tankers to provide services.

This is a concerning trend, as operating water tankers costs the municipality more than maintaining the infrastructure.

Water tankers incur several additional costs, including vehicle maintenance, fuel, and the cost of consistently paying drivers.

A concerning trend in the municipality

AfriForum has criticised the Setsoto municipality’s use of water tankers, saying that it shows a lack of long-term planning.

“The budget earmarked for critical maintenance points to a concerning trend within the Municipality of pursuing short-term solutions rather than sustainable, long-term ones,” it said.

AfriForum’s head for the central region, Jaco Grobelaar, said that water tankers should not be used for consistent service delivery.

“Relying on emergency water supplies is necessary only in exceptional cases,” he said. “However, it appears that this emergency measure has now become the norm.”

He condemned the local government for failing to maintain critical infrastructure and forcing residents to rely on tankers.

“It is unacceptable that residents are dependent on temporary emergency measures while millions of rands are spent on these tankers without the underlying infrastructure problems being resolved,” he said.

“When a municipality spends millions on emergency measures year after year, it is not a sign of successful service delivery, but rather of poor planning”.

In a letter to the area’s municipal manager, Nomvula Malatjie, AfriForum asked for clarification on the reasons for the continued use of water tankers.

The group also looked for the municipality’s current plans to phase out this expensive service delivery method.

Currently, the municipality has not conducted any feasibility studies to determine whether water tankers are a cost-effective means of addressing critical infrastructure failures.

The local government has also been using long-term contracts to acquire its fleet of tankers, which is far more costly than buying its own equipment.

Grobelaar said the issues in Setsoto are similar to those faced by many municipalities, where poor governance leads to inadequate service delivery.

“Poor management and a lack of long-term planning lead to increasing expenditure on emergency solutions, while infrastructure continues to deteriorate,” he said.