Treasury norm: 95% to 100%
Capital (new, renewed and upgraded assets) spent, as a share of the adjusted capital budget.
Source: National Treasury, Municipal Money; calculated with the Circular 71 formula.
Roads and infrastructure · Western Cape
Cape Town
Is the city maintaining and upgrading what it has?
Compare all eight metros: Roads and infrastructure. An asterisk marks a figure our automated checks found inconsistent with another official figure; it is shown as reported, explained in a footnote and left out of rankings.
Spending on what the city builds and keeps
Official: National Treasury · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited) · Last updated
Two of Treasury’s norms: spend 95% to 100% of the capital budget (new, renewed and upgraded assets), and spend about 8% of the value of property, plant and equipment on repairs and maintenance each year.
What these words mean
- Capital budget
- Money set aside to build, renew or upgrade things that last for years: pipes, roads, substations, clinics.
- Adjusted budget
- The budget after the council’s mid-year changes. Spending is measured against this one.
- Repairs and maintenance
- Spending to keep existing roads, pipes and buildings working. Treasury’s guideline is about 8% of what those assets are worth each year.
- Property, plant and equipment
- Everything physical a metro owns and uses: networks, roads, buildings, vehicles. Its value is the yardstick for maintenance.
- Treasury norm
- A target National Treasury sets for every municipality in MFMA Circular 71, so metros can be compared on the same scale.
1.1%*1
Treasury norm: 8%
Spending on repairs and maintenance as a share of the value of property, plant and equipment.
Source: National Treasury, Municipal Money; calculated with the Circular 71 formula.
- *1 As reported to National Treasury. This figure is inconsistent with the Auditor-General's figure for the same year (5.8%) (it differs from that figure by 81%) and may be a reporting error.
Capital budget: spent vs planned
Official: National Treasury · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited) · Last updated
| Metro | Year to June | Original budget | Adjusted budget | Audited spend | Monthly reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cape Town | 2023 | R7.53bn | R7.84bn | R6.93bn | R7.45bnunaudited, 12 of 12 months |
| Cape Town | 2024 | R11.03bn | R11.38bn | R9.41bn | R9.03bnunaudited, 12 of 12 months |
| Cape Town | 2025 | R12.07bn | Not yet published | R9.32bn | Not yet published |
Source: National Treasury, Municipal Money, capital_v2 (new, renewal and upgrading of assets). Each amount links to its exact query. Audited spend is the audited actual. Monthly reports are the sum of the unaudited Section 71 monthly figures, for reference only. Automated checks: audited spend above 1.5 times the original budget, covering fewer than half the functions in the monthly reports, more than 25% away from the sum of 12 monthly reports, or more than 3 times (or under a third of) the year before; monthly figures with a single month above half the annual budget, or a large entry later reversed.
2025-26, unaudited: capital spending
Official: National Treasury, Section 71 (unaudited) · Data as of 30 June 2026 (2025-26, 12 of 12 months, unaudited) · Next update expected November 2026 (Treasury’s next quarterly Section 71 release)
85%
of its adjusted capital budget: Cape Town spent R11.54bn of R13.56bn in the full year (preliminary) of 2025-26, as it reported to Treasury.
Unaudited: what each metro reported to National Treasury for the full year (preliminary) of 2025-26, to 30 June 2026. Capital spending here covers every kind of capital project, so it is wider than the audited “new, renewed and upgraded assets” measure above. The audited years stay the reference; these figures are not used in headlines. Source: Treasury’s summary of metros workbook (all files).
Infrastructure grants: given vs spent
Official: National Treasury, Municipal Money (spending unaudited) · Data as of 2025-26 financial year (spending unaudited) · Last updated
What these words mean
- Infrastructure grants
- Money national government gives metros for a set purpose, such as housing land and services or public transport. Unspent money can be taken back.
2023-24
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | R1.01bn | R678.2m (67%) |
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | R1.78bn | R1.30bn (73%) |
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | R235.9m | R196.6m (83%)11 of 12 monthly reports |
2025-26 so far
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | R1.09bn | R890.5m (82%)9 of 12 monthly reports |
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | R2.88bn | R1.52bn (53%)9 of 12 monthly reports |
| Year | Allocated | Spent |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | – | R53.3m9 of 12 monthly reports |
USDG: Urban Settlements Development Grant (land, services and housing). PTNG: Public Transport Network Grant (bus rapid transit and other public transport). NDPG: Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant. RBIG: Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant (bulk water and sanitation). Spending is what the metro reported each month, added up; fewer than 12 reports means part of the year is missing, and one report can hold a whole year. Treasury’s dataset has no 2024-25 grant figures. Source: National Treasury, Municipal Money, grants.
Still to come on this page
- Big projects: budget, progress and completion. Cape Town’s capital budget and annual report · no official source lists metro projects as data: Treasury publishes only totals, and project lists sit inside each metro’s budget and annual-report documents, in different layouts