Object to the Draft 2025-26 budget for Cape Town

Comments

#12803

The property market has been obscured with the allowance of foreigners to purchase property at dollar rate thats why it unaffordable to purchase property for the present person (local) therefore i dont support the Object to the Draft 2025-26 budget for Cape Town because it includes the increase of property rates etc etc

Joseph Links (2025-05-26)

#12804

I am a retiree without the benefit of annual income increase. The increases in the tariff's are unsustainable. Noting the raising of additional income for infrastructure, is not sustainable as these could be split over a number of years as opposed to collectively in one budget cycle.

Harry Lancaster (2025-05-26)

#12806

E Roos

Elize ROOS (2025-05-28)

#12809

I a signing because the new rates will be unaffordable for a pensioner.
Have listened to the Mayor but find that nothing has changed. Softening means What?

Richard McConnachie (2025-05-31)

#12811

I am signing because I object to these rate & municipal increases. Us Capetonians are financially struggling & can barely afford meat or a healthy meals in our weekly diet as it is. Where must we find this extra money? Crazy!!!

Angela Gray (2025-05-31)

#12812

I'm signing because this is an unfair system taxing ratepayers.

Abdul Fakier (2025-06-01)

#12814

The Office of the City Manager

City of Cape Town
P.O. Box 298
Cape Town
8000

Dear Sir

This is my formal objection to the City of Cape Town’s Draft 2025/26 Budget, which introduces regressive fiscal measures that disproportionately burden vulnerable residents. It undermines conservation efforts, and contravenes constitutional principles. The proposed increases and structural changes outlined in this budget are not only unfair and unaffordable for many residents, like myself, but also oppressive in nature.

I would like to express my specific objections and urge revision of the proposal to align with equitable service delivery obligations.

1) Fixed Electricity Charge:

This has the effect of punishing energy conservation

The introduction of a fixed electricity charge of R339.89, regardless of actual consumption unfairly penalises residents who conscientiously limit consumption, particularly pensioners, small families, low-income households, and energy efficient people who are mindful of their energy use and limit consumption to manage cost and those who use solar electricity to minimise consumption

This decentivises sustainability:

It contradicts the City’s Climate Action Plan (2020) which commits to “rewarding residents for reducing carbon footprints”

Violates Section 27 (1) (b) of the Constitution. By imposing unaffordable costs on basic services, it jeopardises access to electricity for many residents

An example: a pensioner using R200 of electricity monthly would see their bill increase by 170% (R200 + R339.89 + VAT) despite no increase in consumption. By divorcing charges from actual usage, the City disincentives energy efficiency. A policy directly at odds with national sustainability goals. It will definitely be forcing untenable trade-offs between essentials like food and utilities.

2) Water and Sewerage Charges Based on Property Value:

Linking water/sewerage fees to property valuations, rather than usage, is both irrational and discriminatory. A retiree in a modest home in Athlone could pay more than a high-consumption household in Camps Bay, despite vastly lower usage. This:

~ Breaches Section 4 (2) (c) of the Municipal Systems Act.

Fees must reflect the “costs of services” not arbitrary wealth proxies.

It disproportionately impacts fixed income residents whose property values have risen to market
forces, not personal wealth.

It violates the “user-pays” principle enshrined in municipal finances policy, which ties fees to service delivery costs, nor arbitrary valuations.

The City’s own Integrated Development Plan (IDP) commits to “pro-poor, inclusive service delivery.” This proposal disregards that commitment.

3) City-Wide Cleaning Fees:

Taxation Without Service Delivery –

The blanket “cleaning fee” is particularly egregious for communities that receive no such services.

It raises concerns about fairness in resource allocation and value for money for residents.

Residents in underserved areas like Khayelitsha or informal settlements already contend with inadequate waste removal, yet they would be forced to subsidise cleaning in wealthier suburbs.

This: Entrenches Spatial Apartheid:-

Wealthier suburbs already benefit from superior waste management, while marginalised communities face inequitable burdens.

It will entrench the City’s legacy of uneven service delivery.

Contravenes Section 152 (1) (b) of the Constitution. Municipalities must prioritise “the needs of the marginalised groups” in resource allocation.

If the fee is intended to expand cleaning services, it must first be rolled out equitably.

4) VAT on Municipal Charges:
Legally and Ethically Unjustifiable –

Applying VAT to fixed charges (functionally equivalent to property rates) is a double taxation scheme, that:-

Violates SARS Interpretation Note 39 – Rates and Service fees tied to property are
VAT-exempt. Rebranding them as “Charges” does not circumvent this. It violates National Treasury guidelines on tax compliance.

Deceives residents:
Opaque labelling obscures the true cost of municipal bills.

“ A disability grant recipient in Delft whose monthly electricity bill of about R200 would rise to R639.89 (including VAT) – forcing the person to choose between medication and keeping light on".

It is violating the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA).

This requires urgent clarification from SARS and the National Department of Cooperative Governance.

5) Systematic Inequity and Lack of Public Participation: this budget’s regressive structure and flawed consultation process:-
Disproportionately harm vulnerable groups, low-usage households, pensioners, and working class families face 15% -- 30% bill hikes despite stagnant incomes.

Breach MFMA Section 17: Public participation has been perfunctory, with limited outreach to
non-digital, elderly, or low-income residents.

Proposed Solutions

A Fair Budget should:

1) Retain usage-based pricing for electricity and water to reward conservation.

2) Exempt low-income households (e.g. grant recipients, pensioners) from fixed charges.

3) Condition new fees on universal service delivery (e.g. cleaning fees only where service exists).

4) Remove VAT from constitutionally mandated services.

Conclusion

I formally request:-

1 Withdrawal of the current draft for violating equitable governance principles

2 A revised budget subject to transparent, accessible public consultation.

3 Written confirmation of this objection’s inclusion in official records.

Chris Clarke (2025-06-08)

#12816

All these service chargers are way to much. You are killing us out here.

Allena Davids (2025-06-09)

#12823

Cannot afford the increase.

Kerishnie Abrahams (2025-06-10)

#12824

I am totally against the City of Cape Town’s intention to tie Service Costs to the value of the property.
Especially since they are the ones that have decided on property values.

Mike Cooper (2025-06-12)

#12825

I am totally against the ridiculous house price valuations over time and the proposed service charges etc bases on property values.

Sue Cooper (2025-06-12)

#12828

The increases of all my services are unaffordable. City does not bill me for my sewerage because the Thornwood Estate provides it, this is therefore illegal. The city-wide cleaning charge is a subsidization for thousands of homesteads who do not pay rates but cause the biggest pollution problem.

Wendell Beuke (2025-06-13)

#12829

The 37% increase in my property rates is excessive

N Skippers (2025-06-13)

#12831

OPEN LETTER TO CAPE TOWN PREMIER AND MAYOR FROM DISGRUNTLED RATEPAYER ON BEHALF OF MYSELF AND THE WIDER CAPE TOWN COMMUNITY.

SUBJECT: UNSUSTAINABLE AND EXORBITANT COST OF LIVING, RATES, TAXES AND TARIFFS, WASTEFUL Expenditures, CORRUPTION, LARGE SCALE TENDER IRREGULARITIES,NEPOTISM, RACIAL DIVISION IN TERMS OF Spacial PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT. Unconstitutional, INHUMAN POLICIES AND MONOPOLIES. UNILATERAL DECISION MAKING BY THE FAT CATS.
MAYOR'S SCORE: 4/10😥
FACT CHECK: 70% OF WORKERS EARN BELOW THE BREADLINE(R6200) IN THIS PROVINCE.

PROPOSAL: Request that the city's department of revenue to immediately scrap and write off all outstanding arrears on rates, water and electricity accounts for people over 55 and those owning the same property for over 25 years regardless if they've received such assistance before to it's ratepayers as a gesture of good faith and compensation for the extreme angst and abuse suffered by these homeowners with immediate effect. Furthermore, such assistance is a permanent and fixed arrangement to qualifying householders with no further requirements for annual reapplication for such assistance.This will also help restore faith in the city's leadership which has been long lost.

My Letter

When will you stop your extortion of the domiciled and lawful, innocent and overburdened citizens of this province. Yes , I refer to you Premier Winde and your protege, young man Mayor Hill, both earning over 2 million p.a. excl being directors of real estate and property companies not to mention other perks and pension benefits. Shoprite as an example pays their floor staff R4000 pm (You earn 300k pm), go figure how one lives off that with a family of 4, mainly single moms of colour. That's a crime in itself. Then you employ more law enforcement when the crime goes up because your people steal to feed their families costing ratepayers billions more.

Go 'really' experience the Cape Flats, not for a guided tour with armed escorts, see and feel how your forgotten legacy/curse that you wish to keep out of sight out of mind, (those you call 'Coloureds' yet conceived as children by your very own forefathers not too long ago) really live. But you still justify this through gentrification and forced evictions of poor folk of colour from prime areas in the CBD. No wonder our prisons are filled to capacity, that's another form of eviction and forced removals the DA uses, Pollsmoor and others are bursting at the seams and the stink, vermin, filth and disease are contaminating the entire city. it's DA=NP just packaged differently. Underneath you both are the same, you still suck. Courts and prosecutors are ordered to just throw offenders into jail.

CT has become the most expensive city in ZA to live in by far. The unemployment figure is kept low by the huge prison population and giving 10 people 1 person's job in the govt and paying them peanuts, see for yourself at any municipal office. They're mostly useless as well, just causing drama there. We , the poor ratepayers are being blatantly told to sell our properties which we've been living in for decades if we are unable to afford the unsustainable and exorbitant rates and taxes not to mention other unregulated tariffs to our water and electricity bills. Our services are inhumanely disconnected if we either boycott or refuse to accept this type of extortion. You use your numerous incompetent employees, police and courts to execute your dirty work. You then pass this as a by-law trying to legitimise your devious plans.

You're playing God with people's lives and paying yourself private sector salaries at the ratepayers expense. You are supposed to be civil servants, the word servant is apt, yet your salaries are on par with CEO'S yet doing not even a fraction of their work. You operate with impunity because you know you have the corrupt police and courts on your side All at the taxpayers expense of course. All you guys do is attend meetings daily to feed your egos and blow hot air and live in opulence. You are also granted immunity to paying rates and taxes as if you're Royalty while treating the poor like peasants by cutting off access to a fundamental human right and need for basic survival, Water. You have also automatically concluded that all residents living in the suburbs are wealthy and must be ripped off to supply the township's free access to electricity and water.

But remember this, karma is real. Take, take and take without doing anything of real significance by milking the poor and most vulnerable, your day will come. People will leave this city. Anyways, you have the unenviable title for being the world's crime capital. Table mountain means nothing to the homeless, starving and cold. We have the largest homeless population in Africa. The opulence of Cape Town is there for only the rich foreigners who add to your coffers and for whom 'the city really works'. You might be able to fool the masses and get away with your flowery words and grandiose speeches in air-conditioned buildings, but in the end, there are others that see right through you.

We all know who really runs CT? The mafia underworld , extortionists, human traffickers and drug lords, made up mainly of Russian syndicates and cape flats gang mobs and you, the cops and courts are in their books, nothing more than puppets and figure heads playing to their every tune. Innocent folk are being held to ransom by these thugs and illegal foreigners are treated as privileged whom the police and the courts are defending and protecting. The older most vulnerable are being thrown to the wolves by their own city.

Thank you and enjoy your fat salaries. It won't last forever. No nation, no leader can succeed at the expense of its people. Your audacity and the support from the elite in establishing the western Cape as an independent and separate is mind boggling. If it does happen, this province will become an apartheid era State in a short time, it already still is. We have become infamous for being a city of 2 worlds with the most unequal wealth distribution in the world. please bring an end to this insanity. You know you can. Stop the excuses and stop disguising feeble and irregular attempts at legitimacy by attempting to use semantics and change bylaws (sanitation) as a smokescreen to increase tariffs. Enough is enough.

I give your tenure as premier and mayor and your predecessors a 4/10. 😥

Disillusioned ratepayer and resident of Cape Town.

Mukesh Ramnandan (2025-06-24)

#12836

Cape Town is trying to make is only possible for the Uber rich to own property and live there.

Soliprops 31 King (2025-06-28)

#12837

This will be very damaging financially for all affected. People are just about making it month to cover their bills. The government, local and national is doing nothing to help or ease the burden of the middle income which already pays most of the taxes. They just expect us to pay more and more, there must other solutions to this problem.

Lance Achilles (2025-07-05)

#12838

Im a hard working tax paying citizen and with rising costs of food etc we cannot give more than we earn without increases etc.
Everyone must learn to tighten there belts

Donné Sutherland (2025-07-08)

#12840

I'm signing because the electricity tarrifs are way too expensive

Portia Tjiane (2025-07-15)

#12841

I'm signing this petition because of we were never consulted and unemployed when these fees were introduced hence I want it cancelled

Nglanganiso Kubheka (2025-07-16)

#12846

This is unreasonable

Jason Nikiforakis (2025-08-17)

#12851

This is totally outrageous

Helene Anziska (2025-08-17)

#12852

I am signing as an owner of a property because this tax is extreme and unwarranted. This causes more of a housing crises than there already is in Cape Town.

Nicole Nieman (2025-08-17)

#12855

I am now retired and widowed and can’t afford such expenses

Beverley Abramowitz (2025-08-18)

#12857

An irrational calculation method is being used especially with regards to body corporate buildings where there are numerous water connection points .

Bridget Sherman (2025-08-18)

#12861

This is unreasonable and not fair.

Lisa Viljoen (2025-08-19)

#12862

I think we are already being over taxed by the COCT, our infrastructure ie Sewage, water and roads are crumbling, with no new projects to maintain or update.

Hendrik Engelbrecht (2025-08-19)

#12864

My concern of the City of Cape Town implementing fixed fees for water and sewerage. These fees exceed my actual usage, which I find both unreasonable and unfair. The fact that is is calculated according to the size of my erf is not realistic, because then my usage would have been more than the fee.

ANEKE PRINGLE (2025-08-19)

#12865

I am a pensioner and cannot afford all these increases anymore. Already using the minimum amount of water and electricity and now you want me to pay for cleaning other areas. I already clean in front of my property so you should pay me.

Frans Vorster (2025-08-19)

#12872

The increases are unreasonable and unsustainable for home owners.

Matanna Katz (2025-08-19)

#12880

My father is a pensioner and this represents a huge rise in his expenses

Jonathan Goldberg (2025-08-28)

#12883

I cant afford these taxes...too much already

Steven Miller (2025-09-04)

#12885

Subject: Objection to Draft 2025/26 Budget

Dear City of Cape Town,

I am submitting a formal objection to the Draft 2025/26 Budget in its current form.

The proposed increases and structural changes are unfair, unaffordable for many, and regressive in nature. In particular, I object to the following:
1. A fixed electricity charge of R339.89, regardless of actual usage
2. New fixed charges for water and sewerage, calculated based on property value, not consumption
3. A City-Wide Cleaning charge, applied even in areas that receive no such service
4. The application of VAT to these charges—despite their similarity to property Rates, which are not VAT-applicable

These charges will significantly increase municipal bills—by an estimated 15% to 30%—and will disproportionately affect pensioners, low-usage households, and those already struggling to meet monthly costs.

This budget penalises conservation, shifts the cost burden onto the most vulnerable, and introduces charges that many believe to be ethically and legally questionable.

I do not support this budget and formally object to its implementation.

Sincerely,

Moegsien Salie (2025-09-24)



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