Cape Town set to pass budget, while civic bodies consider legal challenge
A special council meeting will be held in Cape Town on Thursday, June 26 to discuss and adopt the city's revised 2025/2026 budget, after a process which saw the city making adjustments to it after complaints over tariff increases and other issues.
Tariff increases, rebates for pensioners and unaffordable rates — these are some of the key issues that will take centre stage on Thursday morning in Cape Town when the city's budget is due to be adopted.
There have been indications that opposition parties will not vote in favour of the budget, and ratepayers' organisations have questioned rates and tariff increases.
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When the city tabled the draft 2025/2026 budget on 27 March, it came under fire for raising tariffs and including a new citywide cleaning fee. Ratepayers and civic organisations said they would object to the new budget.
Just one day before public comment closed in May, the city announced expanded measures for relief, particularly for families in lower-value homes, as well as softening tariffs for the middle class, according to a media release by the City of Cape Town (CoCT).
Read more: Petitions, statements and condemnation: Cape Town's draft budget controversy explained
Some of the additional expanded measures announced by the city include extending the 'first R450,000 rates-free' benefit to all homes up to a R7-million property valuation (up from R5-million). Another measure includes more pensioners qualifying for this benefit by raising the qualifying threshold to a R27,000 monthly income per household (up from R22,000), regardless of property value.
Public comment on the new adjustments closed on 13 June.
However, there are still some concerns from political parties and ratepayers' associations.
Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday, 25 June, the ANC caucus leader in the council, Ndithini Tyhido, said his party would not support 'a budget that fails the people of Cape Town'. The ANC is the biggest opposition party in the council.
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'While the DA-led administration attempts to portray this adjustment as a response to the public input, the reality is that the revised budget remains fundamentally anti-poor, anti-development and deeply exclusionary,' he said.
The party, he claimed, had made it clear that the original draft budget 'failed to address the structural inequalities in our communities'.
Ratepayers' association considering options
The Cape Town Collective Ratepayers' Association (CTCRA) said it still had concerns about the new adjustments, including that 'total municipal rates bill increases are many multiples of the inflation rate, especially for property owners with values [of] R5-million and more, who face double-digit increases'.
The association comprises 57 ratepayers' associations and civic organisations from across the city.
The CTCRA said 'alternative additional revenue sources have not been included'. Another concern was that 'commercial properties are exempted from the introduction of the citywide cleaning charge. This is not fair to residential property owners who do not have this exemption.'
In response to Daily Maverick's questions, Bas Zuidberg, interim chair of the CTCRA, said, 'Given that it is probable that CoCT will approve this budget, we will be looking into the merits of a legal challenge to the principle of calculating fixed charges based on the property valuation.
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'We believe, as do many others, that this a breach of the Municipal Systems Act and sets a dangerous trend for Cape Town as well as a dangerous precedent for the country as a whole.'
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Some of the priorities in the city's budget include 500 new metro police officers spread across wards and more than 200 new officers to protect service delivery teams from criminals.
Other projects include a R4.5-billion allocation for the new MyCiTi route linking Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and other communities to Wynberg/Claremont. The city has a budget of R2-billion for a project that will reduce sewage spills and water bursts by replacing 100km of sewer and 50km of water pipes per year; R3.5-billion will go towards road upgrades, repairs and congestion relief.
According to a report by the city on the public comment process, 1,147 individual submissions were submitted, with a 'significant portion of the feedback focused on the proposed increases in property rates and tariffs, with concerns raised by individual residents, ratepayers' associations, and community organisations'. DM
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