Cape Town mid-year budget 2025/26 speech by Cllr Jansen van Vuuren

by | Mar 31, 2026

Cape Town budget 2025/26, mid-year adjustment budget Cape Town, Freedom Front Plus budget response, Cape Town tariffs electricity water, cost of living Cape Town, ratepayer crisis Cape Town, municipal tariffs South Africa, Cape Town high court SAPOA case, fixed charges unfair tariffs, Cape Town inflation impact, city budget criticism South Africa, Cape Town rates and taxes, municipal debt Cape Town, N2 safety project funding, Cape Town service delivery concerns
FF Plus councillor in Cape Town calls for fair tariffs and meaningful financial relief for ratepayers.

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Today we are presented with the 2025/26 Mid-Year Adjustment Budget.

While the City administration may frame this as a necessary technical exercise, the Freedom Front Plus views it through a much more sobering lens: the lens of the struggling ratepayer in Cape Town.

We are living in a time and in a City where the cost of living is not just rising; it is exploding.

Our residents are being squeezed from every side—by skyrocketing fuel prices, national inflation, and most significantly, by the City’s own aggressive tariff structures.

Let us look at the facts……

This adjustment budget reflects a City that continues to demand more from its citizens while offering less in terms of real and genuine financial relief to ratepayers in mid to higher income brackets.

The costs of water and electricity have become a primary driver of household poverty in our metro.

The City’s reliance on fixed charges—levied regardless of actual consumption—is a direct assault on the principle of fairness.

The Freedom Front Plus is deeply concerned by the City’s apparent disregard for the economic reality of its residents…

We see a “phasing out” of subsidies to the Rates account from electricity sales, yet the tariffs remain punitively high. We see a City that prides itself on “financial sustainability” while its ratepayers are drowning in debt.

Speaker, the citizens of Cape Town are not just unhappy; they are pushed to the brink. One need only look at the High Court case brought by SAPOA and supported by various ratepayer associations against this very City.

This legal battle over the 2025/26 budget and its unfair tariff models is a clear indictment of this administration’s failure to pay attention to those who literally keep the lights on, even for those who does not pay.

When the public is forced to take their own government to court just to ensure that rates and taxes are levied fairly and legally, it is a sign that the social contract in Cape Town is broken.

While there are some positives in the adjustment budget like the funds budgeted for the N2 safety project, The Freedom Front Plus cannot, in good conscience, fully support a budget process that ignores the thousands of objections and petitions from residents who simply cannot afford to live in their own city anymore.

We call on this Council to stop hiding behind “clean audits” and “infrastructure plans” while the people who pay for them are being taxed out of their homes.

It is time for the City of Cape Town to show genuine empathy and to restructure its budget to prioritize the survival of its ratepayers over the expansion of its own coffers.

The Freedom Front Plus will continue to stand with the ratepayers of Cape Town against this callous disregard for their well-being.

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