eThekwini mayor demands DA apology over mafia jibe - IOL

A DA election billboard featuring Mayor Cyril Xaba, eThekwini City Manager Musa Mbhele, and eThekwini Executive Director: Water and Sanitation Ednick Msweli stands at Sea Cow Lake alongside the N2 freeway in Durban. The ANC is demanding an apology and retraction from the DA over the billboard.

eThekwini city leaders, including Mayor Cyril Xaba, are demanding an apology and retraction from the DA over a party billboard unveiled earlier this month. They say it implicates them as part of a “water tanker mafia”.

A lawyer’s letter sent to the DA today and seen by IOL states: “Your DA eThekwini Mayoral Candidate, Mr Haniff Hoosen, unveiled a billboard alongside the N2 motorway in the greater Durban area. Photographs of the current incumbents of the eThekwini Municipality, namely eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba, eThekwini City Manager Musa Mbhele, and eThekwini Executive Director: Water and Sanitation Ednick Msweli, appear on the billboard alongside the statement ‘YOU CAN STOP THE WATER TANKER MAFIA’.

“The statement has the effect of expressly implicating and identifying my clients as being part of a mafia and implies that each of my clients is involved or complicit in some organised criminal activity or syndicate that, in turn, has the consequent further implications of unethical and dishonest conduct.

“Considering the upcoming local elections in November 2026, it is blatantly clear that this statement was created with the intention to influence that election, and designed to directly undermine my clients.”

The letter demands that the billboard be withdrawn and a public apology issued within 24 hours. It warns that failure to comply will result in High Court action.

DA eThekwini mayoral candidate Haniff Hoosen confirmed receipt of the letter and said the party’s lawyers were looking into it.