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Local Government Capital Expenditure (LGCE) Dataset March 2026

Actual capital expenditure by metros rose 10% y-y in the first three quarters of the 2025/26 financial year (as at March 2026), despite no information provided by Nelson Mandela Bay for the second consecutive quarter.  This means an additional R1.7bn was spent by metros during this time, totalling R18.4bn, of the (adjusted) R40.8bn allocated for the financial year.  Highest expenditure was reported by City of Cape Town having spent R7.5bn of its R13.6bn annual budget (or 55.3 percent), followed by City of Johannesburg that spent R3.4bn of its R8.4bn annual budget (or 40.6 percent). This still suggest a relatively poor expenditure rate, as metros collectively spent less than 50% of their annual budgets after the first three quarters. The worst being Nelson Mandela Bay at less than 5 percent, with no information submitted to National Treasury for the 2^nd and 3^rd quarters. Other than NMB, eThekwini spent 39.9%, followed by City of Johannesburg at 40.6%. City of Tshwane reported the second highest expenditure rate of 51.9% followed by Buffalo City that spent 42% of its annual budget.  Capital expenditure by Mangaung rose 55% y-y to  R601m, having spent 42.4% of its R1.4bn annual budget.

Capital expenditure on selected infrastructure related departments (including housing, energy, roads and water) rose 23.7% y-y, outpacing the overall increase in capital expenditure. Expenditure increased across all the main departments, except for health, where capital expenditure fell by 40% and energy sources by 4.6% y-y.

 

Financing remains a key risk: 52% of the R40.8bn Metros capital budget was funded through government transfers, while borrowing increased to R4.6bn in the first three quarters. Internally generated funds contributed 24% (or R4.3bn).  Cape Town stands out for its limited dependence on transfers, relying only on government transfers for 33% of its capital budget, funding 67% of its capital programme through borrowing and own revenues, while metros such as Tshwane, Mangaung, Ekurhuleni and Buffalo City remain heavily dependent on national allocations, heightening their exposure to fiscal and policy constraints.

Introduction

The LGCE Dataset includes capital and other related expenditure across all 257 Local Governments for the full 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial periods, updated on a quarterly basis.

• Capital and other related expenditure details across all 275 Municipalities
• Local government capital expenditure aggregated by province for "infrastructure related items" such as housing, health, roads, energy and water, is also included for periods 2017/18 – 2025/26, updated quarterly, allowing for a 7 year trend line to monitor actual performance against budgetary allocations.
• An easy to use interactive Dashboard is also included to extract information on a selected municipality including tables and charts. 
• The main objective of the Local Government Capital Expenditure Dataset is to track local government performance, benchmark performance against other local governments and identify growth opportunities.  The performance of a metro, DC or local government directly impacts investment opportunities and the attractiveness for investors and monitoring performance in terms of capital expenditure is therefore critical to identify longer term growth opportunities.

The following quarterly indicators are currently included for all municipalities:

• Operating Revenue
• Operating Expenditure
• Capital Expenditure Functional
• Capital Expenditure as % of total expenditure
• Capital Expenditure on key focus areas
  • Housing
  • Health
  • Energy Sources
  • Road Transport
  • Water Management
  • Waste Management
  • Waste Water Management
• Employee Related Costs
• Employee Related Costs % of Operating Revenue
• Employee Related Costs % of Operating Expenditure
• Source of Finance for Capital Revenue
  • Internally generated funds (Rands)
  • Internally generated funds as % of total capital revenue
  • Borrowing
• Surplus/Deficit (Rands)
• Surplus/Deficit % of Total Operating Revenue
• Debtors Age Analysis (Total and exceeding 90 days)
• Creditors Age Analysis (Total and exceeding 90 days)

Information is sourced through various documents released by National Treasury.  Local governments are divided by Metro’s, District Councils and Local Government for all nine provinces including Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal, Northern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Free State and North West Province.

Full quarterly actual and projected revenue and expenditure details are provided by province for metro's, district councils and local governments. 

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