In October 2025, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa answered questions from members of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), one of two houses of parliament. 

Discussing efforts to better monitor service delivery, Ramaphosa claimed that the City of Cape Town had done worse than all other metros in expanding access to services. He criticised the city for spending more in “affluent areas” than in “townships and informal settlements”. 

NCOP member Frederick Badenhorst quickly refuted Ramaphosa’s claims, saying Cape Town spent 75% of its infrastructure budget on low-income households.   

Badenhorst represents the Democratic Alliance (DA), the party that governs the City of Cape Town. 

Later in the session, Ramaphosa’s claims of progress on passenger rail were challenged by NCOP member and DA delegate Igor Scheurkogel, who highlighted that problems remained. 

Who had their facts straight? We checked.

Claim: “Census data shows that in the decade between 2011 and 2022, Cape Town performed worse than the average of all metros in expanding access to services such as refuse removal, piped water, electricity, and flush toilets.” – Ramaphosa

Verdict: Misleading

South Africa has eight metropolitan municipalities, or metros, responsible for core services such as electricity, waste removal, water and sanitation. 

We asked Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) what the 2022 census, the most recent, shows about improved access to these services in all metros. 

Niel Roux, director of service delivery statistics, told Africa Check that “although [Ramaphosa] referenced census data, it was not clear what reports or figures he was specifically speaking about”. 

It seemed the president was referring to percentage point figures, he said, but those did not tell the whole story.“Using the percentage point changes between the two censuses, indeed, shows that Cape Town lagged behind the average of all metros in terms of percentage point increases between 2011 and 2022.” 

However, when the size of the metros and the number of new units provided within each service were considered, Cape Town consistently performed better than the average of all metros, Roux said.

This is clear from the data Stats SA provided for each service delivery category. 

Access to improved water

“Improved water” refers to a drinking-water source that is protected from contamination. Roux told Africa Check that this includes water inside a home or from a community source within 200 meters.

Between 2011 and 2022, 349,819 more households in Cape Town gained access to improved water, a percentage point increase of 1.2. Other metros showed higher percentage point increases.

In 2022, 97.6% of Cape Town’s households had access to improved water, slightly above the national figure of 96.6%.   

We asked the presidency if Ramaphosa’s use of the term “average” referred to the number of new units in each service delivery category divided by the number of metros – in other words, average in the mathematical sense – and did not receive a response. 

But even by that measure, Ramaphosa’s claim does not stand. Between 2011 and 2022, access to improved water increased by an average of 195 095 households across all metros. 

Improved sanitation

Stats SA defines improved sanitation as flush toilets connected to a sewer or septic tank, or pit toilets with ventilation pipes, also known as VIP toilets. 

Between 2011 and 2022, Cape Town provided improved sanitation to 361,810 more households, a 3.5 percentage point increase, lower than in metros like eThekwini and Buffalo City.

But again, a higher share of households in Cape Town (93.5%) had improved sanitation compared to the national figure of 90.1%.

Access to improved sanitation increased by an average of 209 271 households across all metros. 

Refuse removal

Stats SA defines adequate refuse removal as the weekly kerbside waste collection by local authorities. This includes garden refuse and typical household garbage.  

Between 2011 and 2022, Cape Town increased access to this service by about 287 000, a percentage point decrease of -2.6. 

Just over 91% of Cape Town's households had access to refuse removal, compared to 86.5% nationally.

Access was expanded by an average of 149 301 households across all metros. 

Access to electricity

“Access to electricity is classified as households who used electricity for lighting,” Roux told Africa Check.

By 2022, over 360 000 more Cape Town households had access to electricity, a 3% increase from 2011. Other metros, including Ekurhuleni and Buffalo City, showed higher percentage increases.

However, household access to electricity was 96.3% in Cape Town, compared to 94.3% nationally. 

Access was expanded by an average of 223 514 households across all metros.

Context is key

“Metros are not all the same size, they have different baselines, and the quality of service might differ,” Roux said. He added that there were different ways to assess how metros performed using census data, and each method could lead to different interpretations. 

Claim: “Analysis of the city's budget suggests that the per capita investment in infrastructure and service delivery is significantly lower in townships and informal settlements than in the city's more affluent areas.” – Ramaphosa

Verdict: Unproven

In his address, Ramaphosa challenged the notion that the City of Cape Town’s spending benefits its citizens equally. He said his claim was based on an analysis by “other cleverer people”, but Africa Check asked the presidency for further details and did not receive a response.  

Earlier in his address, Ramaphosa referred to research by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, but they could not point us to any analysis. 

According to the city’s budget, proposed spending on infrastructure assets for 2025/26 is R9.46-billion. This covers upgrades, renewals and new projects aimed mainly at improving basic service delivery. 

The city says it plans to spend most of this on projects related to sanitation (R3.4-billion), roads (R2.9-billion), water supply (R1.5-billion) and electricity (R987-million).

But calculating what the city spends per person on infrastructure and service delivery across different income areas is complex. 

Calculating per capita spending

To calculate how much is spent per person in an area, you could divide the total spending by the number of people living there. 

In 2024, Stats SA reported that, based on 2022 census data, municipalities spent just under R8 600 per person on services like water, electricity, refuse removal and sanitation. Municipalities in Gauteng province (R12 000) and the Western Cape (R10 400) spent more than the national average. 

But Malibongwe Mhemhe, director of local government stats, told Africa Check that the analysis specifically looked at municipalities. It did not include ward-level data or details on infrastructure projects by location and income level. 

When asked for spending data broken down by area, the City of Cape Town said the calculation was complicated by several factors. “While some spending may be geographically apportioned, the budget includes significant investments which cannot neatly be classified geographically”, as these span multiple wards, subcouncils or even the entire city, they said.   

Examples include spending on the next phase of the MyCiti bus project, which aims to link informal settlement areas like Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain to mixed or middle-income suburbs like Wynberg and Claremont. 

The city also cited the refurbishment of the Steenbras Dam hydroelectric project, which serves the wider Cape Town metro area.   

Similarly, the city said the location of an infrastructure investment “does not necessarily determine its service area”. Some services, like fire stations, serve a variety of different income areas. 

They added that geographical areas could not always be clearly classified by income, as subcouncils, areas of multiple wards, might include a combination of income levels. All this makes calculating the per-person spending difficult.  

Several budget experts Africa Check contacted could not point to such an analysis. Dr Nombeko Mbava, chairperson of the Financial and Fiscal Commission, an independent constitutional advisory institution, said she “could not verify the claim based on publicly available budget information”.

With no response from the presidency and no publicly available evidence to evaluate, we rate this claim unproven.

Claim: “Cape Town's record R40-billion three-year infrastructure budget directs 75% of spending to lower-income households …” – Badenhorst

Verdict: Unproven

Cape Town’s medium-term revenue and expenditure framework (MTREF), a government framework meant to guide spending, allocates just over R12.9-billion for 2025/26, around R14.3-billion for 2026/27, and R12.9-billion for 2027/28, a total of almost R40.2-billion over three years.

Each of these years has a higher budget than any previous year. In that sense, it is a “record” budget, and Badenhorst is correct about Cape Town’s planned spending over the next three years.

However, whether the budget “directs 75% of spending to lower-income households” is a more complicated question. 

Glen Robbins is an independent researcher who works with several universities worldwide, including as an associate at the University of Cape Town's Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing research unit, within the school of economics.  He told Africa Check that “there is no clear standard to measure the extent of pro-poor spending across all the cities or [the] spending share of capital in historically disadvantaged areas”. This is partly because, like with the claim above, it’s not always clear who the main beneficiaries of an infrastructure project are. 

“Think of a sewer pipeline that might cut through one neighbourhood where the bulk of the capital might be spent, but in fact largely services another neighbourhood,” Robbins said. 

Cities make their own estimates of the expected impact of planned spending, but these aren’t always a strictly accurate reflection of how money is actually spent. Graeme Götz, research director at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, told Africa Check that “the only way to determine whether a capital expense is explicitly pro-poor” was to determine whether the money was “for a poorer part of the city” or “seems to be for a purpose that one could count as mitigating poverty or exclusion, promoting social and economic development, or providing basic services”.

Some of Cape Town’s budget items can be seen as “pro-poor”. Götz used the example of R64-million set aside in 2025/26 for informal settlement upgrades in Mfuleni, a township in Cape Town. But, he said, “if there is R3-million allocated for fencing for the Table Bay Nature Reserve, it would be erroneous to claim it as explicitly pro-poor”, another example from the 2027/28 budget.

“I'm not sure that the claim can be said to definitely stand, at least for 2025/26.” Substantial sums of money were set aside for projects which Götz said “can't be counted as directly pro-poor”.

He identified around R1.3-billion set aside for administration and around R3-billion worth of projects he said “are not being allocated to areas that are especially poor”. This suggests that of the R12.9-billion allocated for 2025/26, there is not R9.7-billion (around 75%) available to “direct” to “pro-poor” projects.

Nick Graham, a public policy consultant and director of Nick Graham & Associates, told Africa Check that cities might use different ways to assess who benefits from an infrastructure project. In detailed cases, this could involve mapping the project’s service area and estimating what share of households were “lower-income”.

But not all allocations are clear. “The better run a city is the more one would perhaps be able to trust the exercise that they undertake, but there are likely to be some level of ‘judgement calls’ by officials and perhaps even pressure from politicians,” Graham said. The laborious task of calculating who benefits from thousands of projects listed in the city’s capital budget, “would be a judgement call on the part of city officials and would require a lot of technical expertise and analysis”.

The City of Cape Town provided Africa Check with a breakdown of its budget “benefitting lower-income households”, which amounted to around R29.8-billion of an estimated R39.7-billion (75%). “In some cases, this investment is to the exclusive benefit of lower income families or areas,” they said, but it also included city-wide projects or infrastructure benefiting “mixed income groupings inclusive of lower income households”.

The city told Africa Check that “the location of infrastructure investment does not necessarily determine its service area”. For example, fire stations in wealthier areas also serve nearby lower-income areas, so investment in one area can benefit residents in another. 

This suggests that the city’s 75% figure is accurate under a generous interpretation of spending meant to benefit lower-income households. Some projects serve mixed-income communities. For example, the city’s water and sewer pipe replacement programme will replace infrastructure in many lower-income areas, but it is a city-wide programme which also serves higher-income households. 

Although the city has analysed its planned spending, leading to the 75% figure, it is difficult to evaluate exactly who will be served.    

Note: In response to our fact-check, the City of Cape Town maintained that the 75% figure was a “conservative interpretation based on a line-by-line item analysis of the capital budget and whether these items benefit lower-income households” and objected to the unproven verdict.  

Claim: “… a pro-poor investment that alone exceeds the entire capital budgets of the other metros.” – Badenhorst

Verdict: Correct

Cape Town’s capital expenditure budget is larger than that of other South African metros. As Badenhorst said, at around R9.7-billion in 2025/26 and R30.1-billion over three years, even 75% of Cape Town’s budget exceeds the total budgets of the other metros for the same period.

The next largest capital expenditure budget is Johannesburg’s, with R8.7-billion for 2025/26 and around R26.2-billion over the next three years. 

eThekwini has budgeted R21.1-billion over three years, while Ekurhuleni has budgeted just under R10.0-billion.

However, not all budgeted capital expenditure is actually used. Under-spending is common. For example, Cape Town’s 2024/25 budget was reduced from R12.1-billion to R10.2-billion, with the final amount confirmed by 2026’s audit.

Claim: “We have already recovered up to 35 [passenger rail] lines that were either dormant or nonfunctional.” – Ramaphosa

Verdict: Correct

On the topic of passenger rail, Ramaphosa claimed that up to 35 previously inactive or non-functional lines had been recovered. 

The same figure has been given by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), the state-owned enterprise responsible for passenger rail services.

Prasa’s 2024/25 annual report includes more detail on what this means. Out of 40 commuter rail lines, 35 lines or sections have been returned to service. Of the 35 lines, 70% have been fully restored, while the rest are “partially resumed”.   

Dr Mathetha Mokonyama is the impact area manager for Transport Systems Operations at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. He told Africa Check that Prasa services declined due to “fewer operational train sets, fewer operational stations, and reduced service speeds due to speed restrictions by the rail safety regulator because of an absent signalling system”.

While most lines have been recovered, ageing infrastructure and the theft of rail materials remain a problem. 

Claim: “The World Bank indicated that low-income South Africans spend 51% to nearly 60% of their net wages on transport.” – Scheurkogel

Verdict: Mostly Correct

When asked for the source of his claim, DA delegate to the NCOP for the Free State province, Igor Scheurkogel, directed Africa Check to a 2024 report on inclusive growth by the World Bank. 

A graphic in the report compares low-income workers in South Africa and Vietnam. It shows that a worker from Johannesburg, living in Soweto and working in Sandton, earning US$1 000 a month, spends $508 on transport. A worker in Hanoi who earns the same spends $96. 

The graphic is attributed to a 2013 commentary by Jacques Morisset, a lead economist at the World Bank. His comparison used estimates from two economists at the Harvard Growth Lab, a multidisciplinary research organisation. 

In a 2022 working paper, Kishan Shah and Federico Sturzenegger found that in 2010, transport costs for employed South Africans equalled 57% of their net wages. This included travel expenses, such as taxi fares, and the value of time spent commuting. Direct costs of transport alone made up 17% of total wages. 

The economists based their calculations on data from the second wave of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) and the 2020 National Household Travel Survey. The NIDS is South Africa’s first nationally representative panel dataset of individuals, tracking 28 000 people in 7 300 households over five waves, from 2008 to 2017.  

Lavinia Engelbrecht, a senior external affairs officer at the World Bank, told Africa Check that the claim was broadly accurate, provided it was clarified that the figure included not only out-of-pocket fares but also the value of time spent travelling.

Stephan Krygsman, a professor in the Department of Logistics at Stellenbosch University, told Africa Check that South Africans typically spend between 10% and 15% of their income directly on transport, though for poorer households this could rise to 20% and even 25%.

“South Africans do, however, spend more on transport than they should,” he said.

Claim: “Passenger trips [via rail] have collapsed from 500-million in 2010 to 77-million in 2024/2025.” – Scheurkogel

Verdict: Mostly Correct

Scheurkogel provided two sources for his claim: an article by the Daily Investor and another by Engineering News.

The Daily Investor article, in turn, cited Stats SA as its source. Kagisho Mathabatha, who focuses on distributive trade statistics at Stats SA, sent Africa Check data on rail passenger trips. It showed that there were over 500-million in 2010 and 73.5-million in 2024.

Mokonyama told Africa Check that the number of passenger trips declined due to various issues facing the system: “That fewer stations are operational implies that, on average, passengers travel longer to access stations or spend more to use other services, such as taxis, to connect to a station.” He added that workers who walked long distances to reach transport faced safety risks, especially when travelling at night, and were often targeted by criminals on payday.

Mokonyama said that in the past, when passenger rail services were disrupted, Prasa would provide basic bus services to reduce inconvenience for commuters. “However, in the recent past, this practice was not adopted, leaving individual passengers to find alternative solutions. In some cases, this results in workers living in squalor conditions nearer to workplaces in order to save on transport costs.”

The government aims to increase the number of passenger trips to 600-million by 2030. 

Written by Africa Check