Infrastructure investment by South Africa’s public sector is in decline for the fifth consecutive year, newly released data from Statistics SA has revealed.
According to the data, capital expenditure decreased by R6 billion between 2020 and ’21 to R198bn.
The data was collected from 745 institutions.
An assessment of the data indicates that “several institutions pulled back on capital expenditure in 2021, while others increased their spending”.
The assessment also stated that “the infrastructure investment contraction in 2021 was due to a sharp slump in spending by public corporations and national government”.
Stats SA found that the ‘big spenders’ were municipalities, higher education institutions, and provincial government.
Respectively they spent R2.1bn, R2bn, and R0.4bn on construction, machinery, equipment, land, buildings and other fixed assets.
