Cape Town Mayor Hill Lewis promises safer roads with new 500 cops

All eyes are currently on Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis as he tables the City's draft budget for 2025/26 on Thursday morning, reports Eyewitness News.

Ambitiously dubbed the 'Invested in Hope' Budget, the public sentiment is that residents of the Mother City are expecting some much-needed reprieve amid soaring costs of living and skyrocketing unemployment rates.

The budget, according to the City, features an unprecedented infrastructure investment of R39.7 billion over three years, surpassing the combined total of all three Gauteng metros.

Hill-Lewis says, notably, 75% of this spending will be directed toward a suite of tariff restructuring reforms designed to provide relief to lower-income households.Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is promising safer streets for the city's residents with the employment of another 500 new metro police officers to be spread across all wards of the city.

On Thursday, Hill-Lewis tabled his administration's fourth and second last budget of this term under the banner: Invested in Hope. Despite objections from opposition parties Hill Lewis says the city's new rates and tariffs increases still make them the lowest of all metros - in what's viewed as the most expensive city in the country. 

Today's budget tabling was temporarily overshadowed by the ANC's leader in council, Banele Majingo defecting to the Democratic Alliance (DA).

Reading from Majingo's resignation statement, Hill-Lewis said this confirmed that the DA is delivering services for all its residents.

"I'm committed to the DA's pursuit of clean governance and economic growth." On average the electricity tariff will go up by 2%, with domestic users paying 5% more for units.

Lifeline electricity customers will still enjoy 600 cheaper units per month, paying roughly the same as they did three years ago. 

"Lifeline customers will further pay no fixed charge, while city customers on the domestic tariff will make a proposed fixed monthly contribution of R59.90 to ensure sustainable electricity services."

The cost of keeping the city clean will no longer be charged as part of the electricity tariff, and instead be reflected as a separate city cleaning charge on municipal bills.