The auditor general recently commented in her audit report that Cape Town is exceeding every target for service delivery in townships. (David Harrison/M&G)
In his opinion piece, Axolile Notywala writes that “unequal spending shows that the City of Cape Town is not pro-poor” (Mail & Guardian, 25 Feb 2025).
Notywala is a member of two of Cape Town’s sub-councils (smaller organising structures with some local decision-making powers), and in this capacity he saw city budget documents detailing expenditure in both of these areas. All of these budget and spending reports are available on the city’s website.
He presents these figures as proof that the city’s spending is skewed in favour of wealthier areas, at the expense of poorer areas. Except, the figures show the exact opposite. Let’s break it down.
Specific infrastructure projects budgeted for sub-council 9 (covering part of Khayelitsha) amount to R143 million over three years. The remainder of Khayelitsha is in sub-council 10, with a budget of R740 million, bringing the total for Khayelitsha to more than R883 million over three years.
The comparative figure for sub-council 16 amounts to R571 million over the same period. This area covers the Atlantic Seaboard and city centre, but as Notywala notes, also includes mixed and lower income areas such as Epping, Pinelands, Thornton, Maitland, District Six, Mowbray, Observatory, Woodstock, Bo-Kaap, Salt River and surrounds.
Already, we see greater investment in Khayelitsha. But these figures exclude projects spanning multiple sub-councils or neighbourhoods. In sub-council 16 capital infrastructure projects taking place this year include:
- Langa fire station construction (R10 million)
- Upgrades to high-voltage electricity in Ndabeni (R14 million)
- Bo-Kaap informal trading area (R5.6 million)
- Upgrades to Cape Town’s flower market (R1.2 million)
- District Six public space upgrade (R1.2 million)
- Inner city public transport hub upgrades (R7 million)
Sub-council 16 also includes major city assets which are used by residents who live throughout the metro. Related projects include upgrades to Green Point Athletics Track and Hartleyvale Stadium (R30 million), City Hall refurbishment (R17 million), and the reconstruction of Tafelberg Road (R39 million) locals and tourists alike.
The upgrade of the promenade (R19 million this year) will enhance this public amenity which serves the whole city.
There are some modest allocations to local neighbourhood parks and public places at Hope Street, Lower Molteno, Obs Village Green, Jutland and others, plus some new digital resources for Sea Point library, amounting to R1.2 million.
Regarding the two Khayelitsha sub-councils (9 and 10), the combined R336 million capital budget for this year benefits lower income households. Some highlights include:
- R68 million in informal settlement upgrades
- R5.7 million in informal trading upgrades
- More than R20 million in recreational facility upgrades including a new synthetic pitch at Site B
- Various parks, sidewalks, library and public transport interchange upgrades
- R222 million in transport infrastructure upgrades to enable a new MyCiTi bus route.
The MyCiTi budget is the perfect example of the many capital projects, often the biggest ones, that cannot be assigned to one specific ward or neighbourhood or single financial year budget.
The extension of our MyCiTi bus service is a nearly R10 billion, multi-year project and covers the areas of Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Philippi, Crossroads, Gugulethu, Hanover Park, Lansdowne and connecting with a new upgraded Wynberg station and Claremont.
The Khayelitsha portion of this construction is worth R940 million, with a further R260 million in the neighbouring Govan Mbeki corridor area.
Only counting the Khayelitsha portion, these figures alone blow Notywala’s distortions out of the water.
The city has also completed a R4 billion upgrade of the Zandvliet Wastewater Works. It serves the whole of Khayelitsha, and can’t be attributed to any one specific community. This upgrade delivers much better sanitation capacity throughout the Khayelitsha network.
The budget figures don’t include sewer and water pipe replacements, which are not specifically assigned to areas at the time of tabling the budget. District engineers assess where the most need is, and use their annual budgets accordingly. In the past three years, we’ve quadrupled the rate of pipe replacements to 100km a year and most of these are in poorer communities.
Notywala shows no accounting of the differential in operational spending — this is the city’s day-to-day spending to deliver largely free (cross-subsidised, but free for the user) basic services to residents in informal settlements.
The city spends upwards of R600 million a year delivering serviced toilets to residents in informal settlements and more than R250 million a year on waste collection services in greater Khayelitsha alone.
We also spend R1.2 billion a year on free (for the user) healthcare and chronic medication in 61 community clinics, almost exclusively in poor communities.
Add street light replacement (a relentless battle against cable thieves), parks, housing, sports fields, libraries, law enforcement presence night and day, fire and rescue, road maintenance and so forth.
In total, based on a line by line analysis, 75% of Cape Town’s record infrastructure budget this year benefits lower income households directly (R9 billion out of R12 billion). Some projects benefit all, or benefit mixed-income communities.
What any comparison of any budget report will show for any part of Cape Town is that the metro is pro-poor. Just the pro-poor portion of our budget is larger than the entire infrastructure budget of any other city.
The auditor general recently commented in her audit report that Cape Town is exceeding every target for service delivery in townships, and needs to pay careful attention to the financial sustainability of doing so.
We spend a disproportionate quantum in the poorest areas — funded by a growing tax base. This is why Cape Town is the most pro-poor government in South Africa.
Geordin Hill-Lewis is the mayor of Cape Town.