WC government, CoCT set to table their 2025/2026 budgets

CAPE TOWN - It’s a big budget day in Cape Town on Thursday, with both the Western Cape provincial government and the city expected to table their 2025/26 budgets.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said his will be a record infrastructure investment budget of almost R40 billion over the next three years. 

Ratepayers will also be hearing exactly how much more they will be paying for municipal services.

Hill-Lewis said he will be tabling only a marginal average increase for electricity of around 2%, despite Eskom’s hefty 11.32% increase to municipalities.

The mayor said his budget will provide for more infrastructure growth in the medium term than all three Gauteng metros combined. 

He said 75% of the R39.7 billion expenditure will be for the direct benefit of lower-income households. 

The city plans to restructure a 10% service delivery charge embedded in the cost of the unit price of electricity to reduce the latest increase for domestic tariff users to around 5%.

Water is also set to be charged according to property value rather than connection size to cushion the blow for poorer households. 

With among the most expensive properties in the country, a 7.96% increase in property rates is being proposed, which the mayor said is lower than other major cities.

Hill-Lewis said the above inflation rate increase will help the city to make record investments in the longer term.