The host cities of Fifa World Cup matches in 2010 will receive a major boost in the two years before the tournament is held.

The government has made R2,6 billion available for the upgrading required for the event.

A fund of R684m was allocated to World Cup host cities in the form of an operating grant to assist them in ensuring that they are ready for the world’s greatest sporting spectacular.

Now a further R2 billion has been proposed for a public transport infrastructure and systems grant. It will not be spent by host cities alone and will include some adjacent municipalities where transport upgrades might be required for the smooth running of the tournament .

The medium-term budget policy statement said: “Considerable infrastructure spending related to the 2010 Fifa World Cup is in progress. Stadium construction projects are on track or ahead of schedule.

“A World Cup host city operating grant is proposed for next year’s budget to help municipalities commission new stadiums, prepare training facilities, improve signage and develop fan parks.”

The medium-term expenditure framework boosts the local government share of national raised taxes by R12,6 billion over the next three years. This will take the revised allocation for 2007-08 of R32 billion to R57,6 billion in 2010-11.

Through local government funding, the equitable share formula and conditional grants have had a considerable influence on people’s lives. In the past three years, 610293 households have been connected to a water supply, 324000 connected to sanitation and 550247 connected to the national electricity grid.

Over the next three years an additional R5,8 billion will be allocated to local government to further provide free basic services to poor people and to step up institutional support for weaker municipalities.

The treasury has earmarked R4,1bn for municipal infrastructure and programmes to boost planning, budgeting and management capacity at the local tier of government.

The budget policy statement makes a significant departure by giving poorer municipalities a proportionally larger share of the local government allocation rather than allowing larger municipalities to take the biggest slices of the cake.

The treasury has sent World Cup host towns and cities back to the drawing boards after their initial budgets for stadiums were found to be too expensive.

It also encouraged them to encourage the private sector to participate in the infrastructure development for 2010 .