Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has tabled a R76.4-billion draft budget for the city for the 2024/25 financial year.

The budget proposes record infrastructure investment of R12.1-billion for the year, and nearly R40-billion over the next three years.

“Our mission is to make Cape Town work by investing, on an unprecedented scale, in the city’s infrastructure,” says Hill-Lewis. “Because, when Cape Town works, Capetonians work.”

Hill-Lewis believes the city’s R39.7-billion investment in infrastructure over the next three years will create around 130 000 jobs, based on construction work alone.

“Since the start of this term of office in November, 2021, Cape Town has added 363 000 new jobs, according to StatsSA,” he adds.

“Our economy is robust, growing fast and creating jobs. Factories are hiring more people, call centres are hiring, entrepreneurs are taking the plunge and starting businesses.”

Hill-Lewis notes that this year’s budget allocates R480-million towards the plan to buffer the city against four stages of loadshedding by 2026.

Over three years, the city estimates it will spend R722-million on independent power purchases, and R4-billion on upgrading the electrical grid to ensure it can cope with “a dynamic, decentralised energy future”.

The city will also invest to make service delivery “loadshedding proof”, with a budget of R680-million over three years.

This includes making municipal buildings more energy efficient, installing small-scale embedded generation at city facilities, developing a ground-mounted solar photovoltaic plant at Atlantis, as well as various investments in generators, inverters, battery storage and uninterrupted power supply for hundreds of traffic signals.

Cape Town has also allocated R5.5-billion to the safety and security portfolio.

Over the next three years, the city plans to invest R610-million in new security-enhancing technology, with an additional R200-million already invested in the current financial year.

This includes R29.7-million on CCTV cameras, R83.5-million on a dash cam and body cam rollout, R94.5-million on aerial surveillance, R10-million on gunshot detection, R15-million on drones, and R355-million on digital coordination across safety services.

“In this year’s budget we have set aside R34-million to train 1 000 new Metro Police candidates. We have also set aside R138-million to procure new vehicles over the three-year period,” says Hill-Lewis.

The budget also shows that more than R7-billion will be spent on public transport over the next three years.

For the 2024/25 financial year, R764-million has been budgeted for repairs to streetlights, and R826-million for road maintenance and pothole repairs.