Johannesburg - The city of Johannesburg has had to slash its budget by over 1 billion rand (132 million dollars) to cover the soaring costs of Soccer City, the stadium that will host the opening game and final of next year's World Cup, The Times daily reported Monday. Soccer City, one of 10 World Cup stadiums, is undergoing a major redesign and upgrade to boost its capacity to 94,000.
Since work on the stadiums began in 2007, costs have soared, putting the host cities under financial strain.
Soccer City is now estimated to come in at 3,3 billion rand, up from 2.5 billion rand at the last estimate, The Times reported.
The bill for Cape Town's Greenpoint stadium is also expected to hit over 4 billion rand, twice the amount originally budgeted, according to The Times.
At the same time, cities and towns are coming under growing pressure to step up their provision of basic services, such as housing and electricity. Frustrated slum-dwellers held several violent demonstrations in July over their squalid living conditions.
A report by the city of Johannesburg laid the blame for Soccer City's escalating costs on high tenders from sub-contractors and high import duties on items such as the stadium's roof, among other things.
The Times reported that the city had ordered department heads to cut 670 million rand from their capital budgets and 477 million rand from their operating budgets to finance the shortfall.
A city spokesman told the paper: "Departments will re-prioritise spending to ensure there are no negative repercussions to services and ratepayers."
The report said Johannesburg, South Africa's biggest city, is already running a hefty operating deficit, as many residents, squeezed by recession, default on their utility bills or cut their consumption of city services.
