Cape Town breaks record with R9.5 billion spent on infrastructure
The City of Cape Town has achieved a new milestone in infrastructure investment, successfully allocating R9.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year.
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the City of Cape Town has made a record-breaking infrastructure investment of R9.5 billion for 2024/25 — the highest of any South African metro.
He reported that the City achieved a capital budget spending performance of 92.3%.
The Safety and Security Directorate led in percentage spent, reaching 99.7%, while the Water and Sanitation Department spent 95% of its substantial R4 billion capital budget, making it the top spender in rand terms.
Mayor’s vision for Cape Town
Mayor Hill-Lewis emphasised that delivering infrastructure projects is crucial to Cape Town’s long-term resilience and economic growth.
“It’s one thing to allocate record budgets for infrastructure, and quite another to actually deliver these large projects in a very complex construction environment. This result is most pleasing – with a full 92,3% and R9,5 billion of our capital investment budget having been successfully invested,” Hill-Lewis said.
He added that Cape Town was being built project by project, into a city of hope with a growing economy that is able to absorb many more people into work.
Safety and Security leads in performance
As mentioned, Safety and Security achieved the highest percentage spend, using 99.7% of its R472 million budget. Investments in this area focused on:
- Fire station upgrades
- Metro police training facilities
- Vehicles
- CCTV, bodycams, and digital coordination systems
Big budget infrastructure directorates
Meanwhile, Water and Sanitation led capital expenditure in rand value, with 95% spent of its substantial R4 billion budget. This directorate alone accounted for nearly 40 cents of every infrastructure rand invested.
“Every section of pipe replacement, every wastewater works upgrade, every pump station that gets refurbished, every source of water added to the City supply, is an investment in the dignity and health of Capetonians, and is literally changing people’s lives,” Mayor Hill-Lewis said.
Other directorates which invested over R1 billion this year include Energy (92.5% spent), Human Settlements (92%), and Urban Mobility (84.4%).