South Africa’s public corporations spent R37.330 billion on new construction works in 2025, down R12.056 billion, or 24.4%, from 2024. Their total capital expenditure nevertheless rose to R86.477 billion from R85.346 billion. Stats SA’s P9101 key findings
The figures were released on 29 October 2026. They describe the 2025 reporting period, not a new spending cut announced this October. The distinction is equally important on coverage: the findings cited here concern public corporations, not all public-sector institutions.
The spending mix changed
| Asset category | 2024 R million |
2025 R million |
|---|---|---|
| New construction works | 49 386 | 37 330 |
| Plant, machinery and equipment | 25 962 | 36 121 |
| Leased assets and investment property | 4 309 | 6 536 |
| Other fixed assets | 3 346 | 2 681 |
| Transport equipment | 824 | 2 421 |
| Land and existing buildings | 1 519 | 1 388 |
| Total | 85 346 | 86 477 |
| Asset category | Change R million |
Change Percent |
|---|---|---|
| New construction works | −12 056 | −24.4% |
| Plant, machinery and equipment | +10 159 | +39.1% |
| Leased assets and investment property | +2 227 | +51.7% |
| Other fixed assets | −665 | −19.9% |
| Transport equipment | +1 597 | +193.8% |
| Land and existing buildings | −131 | −8.6% |
| Total | +1 131 | +1.3%* |
Source: Stats SA P9101 key findings for 2025. Amounts are R million, not R billion. SBL reconstructed 2024 category values by subtracting the reported changes from 2025 values. The two total values are directly reported. Category percentage changes are Stats SA’s; *total growth is SBL’s calculation, rounded to one decimal place. These are reported rand amounts, not an estimate of inflation-adjusted growth.
SBL analysis: a higher total is not a construction recovery
A combined investment number can conceal very different conditions for suppliers. A business seeking construction contracts should not treat rising aggregate capital expenditure as proof that demand in its own market is improving. Equally, the construction decline does not mean every type of investment is contracting.
Plant, machinery and equipment spending rose 39.1%. On SBL’s calculation, new construction’s share of the total fell from 57.9% to 43.2%, while machinery’s share rose from 30.4% to 41.8%. Underlying amounts: Stats SA
This is a change in the composition of expenditure. It is not evidence, on its own, that machinery replaced workers or that particular building projects were cancelled. Those conclusions would require employment, procurement and project-level information.
What businesses should check next
For a contractor, the useful next questions are which entities have funded work, whether tenders have reached award stage and when delivery is scheduled. For an equipment supplier, higher spending across a category is still no guarantee of a new order: the relevant buyer, specification and procurement timetable matter.
The next analytical step is to connect expenditure to identifiable assets and delivery milestones. A rand total cannot establish whether a project finished on time, improved a service or provided value for money. Nor should these annual figures be treated as a forecast for contracts available now.
Related reading: SBL’s separate analysis of private-sector building approvals and completions. That series measures a different part of construction activity and should not be combined with this one.
How we reported this
SBL checked Stats SA’s release listing and key findings on 30 October 2026. The detailed PDF and time-series workbook could not be retrieved for verification. The exact financial-year convention, revision flags and detailed methodology remain unchecked; this report therefore uses Stats SA’s year labels and does not make entity-level claims. Interpretation is identified above as SBL analysis.
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