Here is how Tshwane will be spending its R54.6 billion budget

The nation’s capital will dedicate more than a billion rand to infrastructure maintenance for the coming financial year.

The City of Tshwane (CoT) tabled a draft budget of R54.6 billion for the 2025/26 financial year in council on Thursday.

Deputy Mayor and MMC for Finance Eugene Modise said it was a proud moment for the city, but the opposition benches stated the budget places the city’s financial burden on the residents.

Increased revenue generation

The budget will be split into an operational budget of R52.2 billion and a capital expenditure budget of R2.4 billion.

Additionally, grant allocations include R5.5 billion in operational grants, R2 billion in infrastructure grants and R152 million through a new urban development financing grant.

Tariffs are set to increase despite Modise noting that the city has seen a 2% increase in revenue generation, amounting to R777.5 million.

The higher tariffs for Tshwane residents include a 10.2% increase in electricity, a 13% increase in water costs, and a 4.6% increase in refuse removal.

However, Modise has placed a 4% reduction in property rates on the table.

Modise said the city had decreased its expenditure on employees by 3%—R346.5 million—and reduced its own penalty fees by R71 million—a 32% reduction compared to last year.  

“It translates our vision into action, outlining how we intend to meet the urgent needs of our residents while building a stronger, more sustainable city,” stated the Deputy Mayor.

Money for jobs

Jobs were an expected theme of the budget, with Modise stating that R740 million would be allocated to the economic and spatial planning department for unemployment interventions.

This would be to support SMMEs, youth-owned enterprises, cooperatives and their VIP business line — a service for the city’s top 200 businesses.

The city aims to attract R17 billion in new investment, with the hope of creating 80 000 new jobs by 2029.

Further investment in government employment programmes will see R49.2 million and R76 million go toward 11 034 extended public work programme opportunities and the public employment programme, respectively.

A proposed R21 billion allocation will go towards energy and electricity infrastructure, with that being a small part of the city’s infrastructure drive.

“This budget seeks to develop a culture of maintenance of its assets, and in doing so, we have allocated R1.4 billion for repairs and maintenance. This is to ensure that we break the cycle of letting our infrastructure decay,”

The achievement of growth targets will be aided by maximising the potential of facilities such as Wonderboom airport, events centres, economic hubs and tourist attractions.

“Revenue generated from these assets will augment our service delivery efforts and assist us in achieving our economic growth target of 3.9% by 2029,” stated Modise.

New levy for waste

Democratic Alliance shadow MMC for Finance Jacqui Uys said Modise’s budget shifted responsibility for the city’s financial stability onto the residents.  

“This budget is not serving the residents of Tshwane, but becomes part of the ANC’s quest to look good on paper but fail in its real mandate – delivering services,” Uys told The Citizen.

The city wishes to introduce a new R194 cleaning levy for households without a waste account, which will generate an extra R400 million from waste collection.

“The same draft budget proposes a decrease in spending on waste collection and illegal dumping from R2.1 billion in the current year to R2 billion in the next budget cycle,” said the shadow MMC.

“This clearly indicates that the intention of this new levy is not to ensure a cleaner city, but rather the introduction of yet another tax to use the residents of Tshwane as a stopgap to improve the city’s financial position,” concluded Uys.

The debate of the speech and the vote to approve the Integrated Development Plan is scheduled for 29 May.

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