City Accused of Misleading Residents in Budget Process

GOOD Statement by Sandra Dickson, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor:

The current public participation process on the City of Cape Town’s 2026/27 Draft Budget raises serious concerns about whether residents are being meaningfully informed or deliberately misled.

What we are witnessing across subcouncil budget engagements is not genuine public participation. It is a carefully managed process where the Democratic Alliance government presents a simplified version of the budget, avoids meaningful financial scrutiny, and allows discussions to drift into everyday service delivery complaints.

This is not by accident. It is by design.

The Municipal Systems Act is clear: public participation must be meaningful, informed, and capable of influencing decisions. The Constitution further obliges municipalities to actively encourage community involvement in matters of governance. What is currently happening falls far short of that standard.

Instead of equipping residents to interrogate the budget, the City’s presentations focus on:

• Selected ward-level projects that create the impression of delivery,
• Simplified tariff percentages without explaining their real financial impact,
• General service narratives that distract from the actual cost implications residents will face from 1 July 2026.

At recent engagements, discussions were dominated by issues such as potholes, law enforcement failures, and accessibility challenges. While these are legitimate concerns, they are not the purpose of a budget meeting.

The result is that residents are leaving these engagements without asking the most critical questions:

• How will this budget affect my monthly bill?
• What fixed charges are increasing regardless of usage?
• Are property rate reductions real, or offset by increased property valuations?
• Where is the bulk of the City’s R87.79 billion budget actually being spent?

This is deeply concerning.

A budget is not a report-back session. It is a financial plan that directly determines what residents will pay and what services they will receive. If residents are not guided to interrogate it properly, then the process becomes nothing more than a tick-box exercise to legitimise decisions that have already been made.

Residents must understand the stakes.

If this budget passes, which it will by a majority vote in Council, its financial implications will take effect from 1 July 2026. Once adopted, it cannot simply be reversed because residents later realise its impact.

• Increases in electricity, water, sanitation, and fixed charges will become binding.
• The shift to property value-based charges will continue to place pressure on households.
• And any failure to challenge priorities now will lock in spending decisions for the year ahead.

This is the moment for residents to act.

We urge every resident, civic organisation, and community structure to:

• Engage directly with the actual budget documents, not just presentations,
• Calculate the real impact on their household finances,
• Submit formal comments and objections before the deadline.

Silence will be interpreted as agreement.

The DA-led City must be held accountable for ensuring that public participation is not only accessible but meaningful. Anything less undermines the very principles of democratic governance and fairness.

Residents deserve the truth. They deserve transparency. And most importantly, they deserve a real opportunity to influence the decisions that affect their daily lives.

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