Tshwane Mayor Nasiphi Moya led multiparty coalition government that was put to test in 2025.
Image: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Newspapers
The City of Tshwane’s fledgling multiparty coalition, comprising the ANC, ActionSA, EFF, and smaller parties in council, faced its toughest challenge with governance and financial management under the microscope in 2025.
The coalition government marked a year in office in October following the ousting of the DA-led coalition.
On its first anniversary the new alliance partners wasted no time firing back at critics who had predicted their downfall.
This was despite some internal strife in the coalition government caused by disagreements over the fate of city manager, Johan Mettler.
This stemmed from a letter written by the Gauteng MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Jacob Mamabolo, to mayor Nasiphi Moya expressing concerns over the appointment process for Section 56 managers, citing potential irregularities in interview panel compositions.
This move led to tensions within the coalition government, with ANC regional secretary George Matjila threatening that if irregularities are found to be true the ANC would “call for those people to be removed”.
He noted that several senior managers’ appointments, including Mettler’s, appointed by council in terms of Section 54, were under scrutiny.
The public spat over Mettler’s appointment escalated when the EFF also held a view that he must be pushed out and ActionSA dug in its heels in opposition.
On the other hand, former DA mayor of Tshwane, Cilliers Brink, said it was just a matter of time before the ANC coalition moved against professional senior managers in the municipal administration to make way for their cadres.
The coalition government also faced fresh scrutiny over its financial management, with reports emerging that Moya's administration allegedly wasted R777 million on water tanker operations in its first nine months.
Moya hit back at reports, labelling them "incorrect". According to her, the figure is based on a system extract showing total purchase orders, including R156m in cancelled, duplicated, or unprocessed transactions.
She insisted that the R777m figure represents procurement activity, not actual spending. According to her, a verified financial report shows the city spent R322m on tanker operations in 2023/24, including R179m in unpaid invoices settled this year.
Brink rejected Moya's explanation over the city's water tanker spending, claiming the administration only has purchase orders for R381m of the R777m allegedly spent.
Brink accused Moya's administration of potentially paying unverified invoices, raising concerns of possible large-scale fraud.
Tshwane deputy mayor Eugene Modise hogged the headlines for breaching the councillors' code of conduct by benefiting from Triotic Protection Services, a security firm with a municipal contract, according to a council-commissioned forensic report.
The DA has since filed criminal charges against Modise with the SAPS, ensuring the saga continues into the new year.
Modise, who also serves as member of the mayoral committee for Finance, reportedly flouted council regulations by failing to divulge and divest his interest in the security company.
Modise has constantly defended his link to Triotic, saying the company secured the municipal tender in 2016/17, before he became a councillor in 2023.
He claimed he resigned from Triotic, a company owned by his mother Nelly Modise and directed by Neo Mafodi, allegedly the mother of his child.
Moya, who is an ActionSA deployee, also faced controversy over a R270,000 debt to the city - the amount which represented overpayment she received as a municipal official in Tshwane in 2019.
She served as head of the chief whip’s office and later as chief of staff to former mayor Stevens Mokgalapa, a former DA member.
Moya was one of 78 senior officials who received benchmarking-related salary adjustments that were later found to be inconsistent with final approved salary bands.
She clarified that the overpayment only became apparent after the benchmarking process concluded in July 2020, by which point she had already resigned, having left the city on 31 May 2020. She has since made arrangements to repay the city.
In November, the DA's Jacqui Uys claimed Moya admitted to owing the city R46,000 in outstanding rates and taxes from 2023. Moya dismissed the claims as "false, misleading, and politically motivated".
Her chief of staff, Andre Coetzee, backed her up, saying the DA's claim is contradicted by city financial records and is "bad-faith politics at its worst".
In August Moya pledged to upgrade the city's fresh produce market after a Gauteng High Court ruling threatened her and Mettler with imprisonment.
The court order, dating back to October 2022, required the city to provide essential services to the market, and Moya vowed to comply following the court ultimatum.
The Institute of Market Agents of South Africa approached the high court, seeking a ruling that the city be held in contempt of a 2022 court order.
Moya's administration also locked horns with the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) over unpaid salary increments.
Samwu protested outside Tshwane House in July, demanding the city honour 3.5% and 5.4% outstanding increases for the 2021/22 and 2023/24 financial years, respectively.
The union also threatened to disrupt the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November over non-payment, but that never materialised.
The city’s controversial monthly R194 cleansing levy on properties using private waste collectors came under scrutiny when AfriForum took the city to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to have it reversed.
The civic organisation won the case after the cleansing levy was deemed unlawful, but had to return to the high court to have the ruling enforced after the city failed to implement it immediately.
The city did not implement the ruling striking down its R194 monthly cleansing levy, mistakenly believing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal would automatically suspend the judgment.
In April, the Lotus Gardens, Atteridgeville, and Saulsville Civic Association (Lasca) vowed to boycott the city's outreach programmes regarding the proposed budget and integrated development plan for the 2025/2026 financial year, citing unaddressed grievances over the metro's debt-relief incentive scheme.
Lasca expressed disappointment over the Tshwane municipal debt relief scheme, saying it has failed to deliver on promises to cancel outstanding bills for indigent households.
The scheme, adopted by council in February, had touted potential debt write-offs of up to R10 billion.
In September, Dr Zweli Mkhize, leading the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, bemoaned service delivery failures in Tshwane, particularly in water and electricity.
“You are losing R1.3bn annually through water losses, and electricity losses also remain severe. We need detailed plans with targets and timeframes. Contamination of drinking water is not a technicality – it is negligence,” he told a team of senior municipal managers and Moya.
With 2026 going to be a year of local government elections the coalition partners' every move will be under the opposition's microscope. They can expect critics to seize on any missteps, with governance set to face intense scrutiny.
rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za