A political and legal battle over the Democratic Alliance’s controversial “water tanker mafia” billboard has deepened, with eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba denying allegations that the municipality pressured the billboard’s property owner to have the advertisement removed.
The billboard, erected alongside the N2 and unveiled by DA eThekwini mayoral candidate Haniff Hoosen on Monday, 28 September, featured Mayor Cyril Xaba, City Manager
Musa Mbhele and Executive Director for Water and Sanitation Ednick Msweli alongside the message: “You can stop the water tanker mafia. Vote DA for water in your taps.”
The advertisement immediately became the subject of a legal dispute after attorneys representing the three officials sent the DA a letter of demand arguing that the combination of their photographs and the phrase “water tanker mafia” associated them with organised criminal activity.
According to the letter, the billboard “has the effect of expressly implicating and identifying” the officials as being part of a “mafia”. Their attorneys maintained that any suggestion that
Xaba, Mbhele or Msweli were involved in or complicit with organised crime was false, unfounded and defamatory. The DA was given 24 hours to remove the billboard and related material, retract the statements and issue a public apology, failing which the officials warned that they could approach the High Court.
The DA initially refused to remove the advertisement. Hoosen maintained that the billboard was intended to highlight political and administrative accountability for eThekwini’s continuing water problems. “The Mayor, City Manager and Head of Water and Sanitation appear on this billboard because the water crisis has worsened under their leadership,” Hoosen said when the campaign was launched.
The party has claimed that eThekwini has about 13 000 active water leaks at any given time and loses approximately 21 billion litres of water every month — figures it has repeatedly used in its election campaign on the state of the city’s water infrastructure.
The municipality has previously disputed suggestions that it remains dependent on privately hired water tankers, with the Mayor’s Office saying the city had invested approximately R345 million in purchasing its own tanker fleet and no longer used hired tankers.
Despite the DA’s initial refusal to comply with the demand, the billboard was removed on Friday, 2 October.
In a statement issued on the same day, Hoosen insisted that the DA had not agreed to take it down. “The DA’s position was clear, we were not willing to remove the billboard, yet despite this, the billboard has been taken down,” he said.
Hoosen accused the City of focusing on the billboard rather than the underlying water problems, saying: “The city has chosen to fight a billboard, threatening legal action to defend incompetence, rather than spending the money on fixing the pipes.”
He further framed the issue around the DA’s election campaign, saying: “The choice in this election is between Taps, or Tankers.” Subsequent reporting indicated that the billboard company had removed the advertisement, saying it acted to protect its business and landlord’s interests and to maintain a neutral position. The circumstances surrounding its removal were again raised during an eThekwini municipal media briefing on Sunday, 4 October, when Xaba was questioned about allegations that the property owner had been threatened or pressured into removing the billboard.
Xaba rejected the allegation that the municipality had exerted any pressure.
“EThekwini had no influence and did not threaten the property owner to remove the billboard, as accused by the DA. They are the ones who can answer on what led to the removal and the cost implications. That is between them and the property owner,” Xaba said.
He confirmed that legal action had been initiated demanding that the DA remove the advertisement.
Xaba has maintained that while the City accepts robust political criticism, he believes the billboard crossed the boundary into defamation by associating the three officials with criminality. Speaking at the City’s briefing on Sunday,
4 October, he reiterated that municipal officials should not be labelled as criminals while carrying out their duties.
The municipality also welcomed the billboard’s removal, maintaining that political debate should not amount to personal defamation. The DA, however, continues to stand by the broader thrust of its campaign and has indicated that it intends to challenge the dispute through the appropriate legal channels.
What began as an election advertisement targeting eThekwini’s water crisis has consequently developed into a wider dispute over political accountability, the boundaries of campaign messaging and the circumstances surrounding the removal of the billboard — with the city’s persistent water challenges remaining at the centre of the political contest ahead of the elections.
