Mayor announces SA-record R12bn capital spend - Full Council Speech 30 July 2026

30 July 2026

We have set a new South African record of capital expenditure in one financial year by a city government

Madam Speaker

Fellow Councillors and Team Cape Town colleagues

Members of the public

Goeiemôre, molweni, as-salam alaykum, shalom, good morning,

Colleagues,

As is the custom, when new councillors join us, I like to formally welcome them in their first Council meeting.

Two new members of this Council were inaugurated just a couple of days ago. They are Cllr. Matthew Cook from GOOD, and Cllr. Siphelo Sikolisi from the EFF.

A very warm welcome to both of you. Even though you join us right at the tail end of this Council, I do hope to work constructively with you in these remaining months of this term.

Colleagues,

I’m sure most of you would have noticed the festive atmosphere on the Concourse level of the Civic Centre this morning – the balloons and cupcakes and a banner containing a very big number.

Today I invited City staff to celebrate an incredible achievement by Team Cape Town.

We have set a new South African record of capital expenditure in one financial year by a city government.

R12,24 billion rand in one year.

Let that number sink in for a second.

That’s a Capex spend that beats even the mega infrastructure investments made ahead of the 2010 World Cup by any city.

The precise number will be confirmed in the course of August, as the final reconciliations are made, but this number is nearly final.

That is an incredible achievement, and I was so proud to share the moment with every staff member in the building today.

I want to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to every member of Team Cape Town who worked hard to make these projects a success, who planned carefully, who prepared these projects painstakingly, and who worked through whatever obstacles arose to make sure they were delivered.

I also want to thank the construction industry in Cape Town.

I remember so clearly when we published our first Infrastructure Report – which has become an essential annual read now – the pipe laying companies told me they could not handle the amount of pipe replacements we wanted to do.

But over the course of this term, they and many other construction firms and engineering firms all around South Africa have risen to the occasion. They’ve scaled up, hired many more professionals, because of the investments we have made here. I want to thank them too.

When we started this term of office, the City could not achieve a capital expenditure of more than R6 billion a year. In some years it was below that.

In the course of this term, we have more than doubled that.

We’ve established a new benchmark for what the minimum required level of capital expenditure should always be in a city of our size and growth.

Let me be clear. I firmly believe this is the minimum required investment Cape Town, and every other major metro in the country, should be making in basic infrastructure every year, and that this amount should grow each year by the combined amount of inflation and population growth, at least.

That should be a golden rule for Cape Town’s budget for years to come.

Because this is not just about breaking a record for its own sake. It is a milestone that sets Cape Town apart from every other city in South Africa right now.

Not a day goes by that we don’t read another heartbreaking report of the decay, neglect and collapse of public infrastructure in so many of our country’s other cities and towns.

Crumbling water pipes, overflowing sewers, wastewater treatment works that have long exceeded their operating capacity, electricity grids that are constantly shutting down, roads – often major thoroughfares – that have more potholes than usable road surface left, street lights that haven't switched on in years, traffic lights that have become permanent four-way stop streets…

The saddest part is that residents of those cities and towns have slowly come to accept this as an inevitable state of affairs. They live with it, and they live around it. But they’ve had to stand by for years and watch their city disintegrate before their very eyes.

And why did this happen? It happened because their city governments did not, or could not, take the decisions necessary to prioritise what makes cities work, and to plan with the long term future of the city in mind.

They could only think about the here and now – about plugging emergency holes and fixing only the things over which there is the loudest public outcry. They fell so far behind in their infrastructure investment that the future became a problem too big to even contemplate.

It also became someone else’s problem, because political change started to loom large ahead. And so timeframes shrank to the current financial year, and maybe the end of the term of office, but nothing beyond that.

That deterioration and collapse is the only possible outcome when you don’t plan and spend and build for the future version of your city.

That’s not to say all is lost for places like Johannesburg and Durban.

Anything can be turned around and rebuilt – and residents of those cities will have a golden opportunity to vote for that in less than four months’ time.

Where could a city like Johannesburg have been today, had they made the necessary investments ten or twenty years ago?

We made a vow that this would never be allowed to happen to Cape Town.

We would do whatever it takes to ensure that our investment in Cape Town’s public infrastructure stays ahead of the city’s growing population pressure, and that Cape Town would be ready for whatever the future held.

That is why today’s announcement and celebration of a record R12.24bn capital investment in this past financial year is so important. It demonstrates not only to Capetonians but to South Africans right across the country what it takes to build for the future. To build a City of Hope.

Each Councillor in this Council who supported these investments can feel a sense of pride that we have made big strides to guaranteeing Cape Town’s future success.

The City of Cape Town continues to out-invest all three Gauteng metros combined when it comes to infrastructure.

That, colleagues is why Cape Town is on an entirely different trajectory to every other city in South Africa.

It’s not luck, it’s not coincidence and it’s not external factors.

It is the clearest possible expression of cause and effect you could ever hope to see.

Cape Town is succeeding because we are investing in it and building it to succeed.

And so, as we did last year and the years before that, I would now like to pay special tribute to the City directorates that achieved outstanding results in spending the largest percentage of their capital budgets.

We have certificates of recognition for each of these directorates, and we will arrange with the relevant Mayco members for an appropriate handover.

So coming in at third place, having achieved an impressive 98.37% of their capital budget, is the Urban Waste Management directorate. Congratulations on that outstanding performance!

Then in second place, having spent 99.45% of their capital budget, we have the Finance Directorate. What an achievement!

And that brings us to our best performing directorate for the 2025/26 financial year, having spent an incredible 99.85% of their considerable R426m capital budget for the year, it is none other than our Safety and Security directorate.

Well done to Alderman Smith and his entire team!

You might recall that they also walked away with top spot last year. So back-to-back champions.

Colleagues, you will also recall that I traditionally do a second award – this time for directorates with capital budgets in excess of R1bn for the financial year. I call them our Billions Club.

The reason I like to award them separately is because spending such significant amounts is a very challenging and complex undertaking, and therefore deserving of its own recognition.

We have four such directorates, whose annual capital budgets exceed a billion Rand: Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Urban Mobility and Energy.

Together, these four directorates account for a whopping 79% of our total capital budget, and they carry a huge responsibility for the progress we make as a City.

And so I am very pleased and proud to announce, in third place in our Billions Club, having spent 92.1% of their capital budget, it is none other than our Water and Sanitation directorate.

But before I go on to second and first place, I just want to briefly put Water and Sanitation’s spend into perspective: Achieving 92.1% of their capital budget means they spent an incredible R4,477 billion this past year.

Think about that – almost four and a half billion Rand.

The capital budget of our Water and Sanitation directorate is larger than the whole capital budget of most other cities in South Africa.

In the first year of this term of office, our entire capital budget across for the city was R5.43bn. Water and Sanitation have now spent 82% of that entire capital budget from 2021/22 by themselves.

This speaks volumes about the directorate’s project and contract management capabilities and how this has ramped up over four years, and they deserve a lot of praise.

Sticking with Water and Sanitation, you will know that possibly the single issue I have spoken most about these last five years is the state of our sewer pipe network. On the very first day of this term of office I went to Khayelitsha and deliberately stood at an overflowing sewer, and said this must change.

At that time, the City was replacing and upgrading just 25km of sewer pipes each year.

Since then, we have set our target at 100km a year.

Both the largest, and the second largest sewer pipe upgrade projects in South Africa are currently under construction here in Cape Town, being the Cape Flats main sewer upgrade, and the Philippi main line upgrade.

We have seen sewer spills and blockages come down across the city by 33% in this term. Still much to do, but also much progress to celebrate.

You may recall that last year I introduced a light-hearted new trophy for the Water and Sanitation directorate for each time they hit the 100km target. And so I am proud once again to award them the Golden Pipe trophy for completing 104,5km of sewer pipe replacement and upgrade in the last year. Well done colleagues!

This is a light-hearted trophy to say ‘well done’, but what it really means is better dignity for residents, and communities living with fewer and fewer spills as this programme continues.

Now, back to the Billions Club.

Colleagues, in second place among the Billions Club members, having spent 93.38% of their R1.44bn budget, we have our Human Settlements directorate. Another outstanding achievement, and we know they are going to be even busier in the year ahead.

And that brings us to our best performing directorate in the Billions Club, with a fantastic 96.53% spend of their R1.34bn capital budget, it is our Energy directorate.

What an impressive performance by everyone in our Energy directorate!

From the massive investments in electrical grid upgrades and maintenance, to the brand new Atlantis solar and battery farm, to the many different ways the City is diversifying and cleaning its energy mix, you are showing not only Capetonians but all South Africans what it takes to build a sustainable and energy-secure city.

Madam Speaker,

I think I speak for all of us when I extend our heartfelt congratulations to these winning directorates, and to everyone who played a part in Cape Town’s record-breaking infrastructure investment year.

These investments are changing lives through dignified services, through safer neighbourhoods, through expanded access to affordable housing and economic opportunities, through vastly improved public transport and so much more.

That is what we mean when we say we’re building a City of Hope.

We will not be deterred in this mission – because we love our city, and love all of its people, and we will keep taking this city forward for everyone.

Thank you.

End

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office