Cape Town has cemented its status as South Africa’s leading metro for infrastructure investment, having spent R9.5 billion – 92.3% of its capital budget – in the 2024/25 financial year, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis revealed the figures during a council address, framing the expenditure as critical to avoiding the service delivery collapses seen in other cities.
‘This shows we are delivering on our pledges to invest in more of the basic infrastructure that makes the city work,’ Hill-Lewis stated. The Water and Sanitation directorate led spending at 95% of its R4 billion allocation, while Safety and Security achieved 99.7% utilisation of its R472 million budget for CCTV networks, bodycams and police facility upgrades.
Key expenditure areas included:
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Water/Sewage: 100km of sewer pipes and 50km of water mains replaced annually (R2 billion project)
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Safety Tech: Metro police training facilities and digital crime-fighting systems
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Transport: R4.5 billion for the Khayelitsha-Mitchells Plain MyCiTi route
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Energy: 92.5% of budget spent on grid maintenance and upgrades
The mayor emphasized that 75% of the three-year R40 billion ‘Invested in Hope‘ budget directly benefits lower-income communities, with projects like R3.4 billion for informal settlement upgrades and R2 billion for rental unit repairs.
While celebrating the 92.3% spending rate, unprecedented for a South African metro, Hill-Lewis acknowledged implementation hurdles. Urban Mobility trailed at 84.4% budget utilization, reflecting delays in roadworks and public transport expansions.
‘It’s one thing to allocate record budgets… quite another to deliver these large projects,’ he noted. The City attributes its success to project pipeline planning and anti-corruption measures in tender processes.
Cape Town’s spending spree forms part of a multi-year strategy to future-proof services amid population growth. According to the City of Cape Town, alternatives like public-private partnerships and green financing could supplement traditional funding for upcoming projects like the Cape Flats Sewer Upgrade (South Africa’s largest such project).
With 700 new police officers and R3.5 billion for road upgrades earmarked for 2025/26, officials aim to balance immediate service delivery with long-term resilience.
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Picture: Getty Images
