Gauteng government faces scrutiny over R4.2 billion in new irregular expenditure for 2024/25
The Gauteng Provincial Government has recorded R4.2 billion in new irregular expenditure for the 2024/25 financial year
Image: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
The Gauteng Provincial Government has recorded R4.2 billion in new irregular expenditure for the 2024/25 financial year, despite improvements in overall audit outcomes across departments and public entities.
Finance MEC Lebogang Maile revealed this during a media briefing following the tabling of annual reports in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on Tuesday, September 2 2025.
"In the 2024-2025 financial year, Gauteng Provincial Government departments incurred R4.2 billion in new irregular expenditure. The province is dedicated to enhancing compliance with supply chain management regulations by automating supply chain management processes related to tenders and requests for quotations", Maile said
According to the MEC, 14 out of 19 public entities and eight departments achieved clean audit outcomes, reflecting what he described as progress in financial management and accountability.
"This is an indication of stable and effective leadership that is focused on upholding clean governance. In the 2024-2025 financial year, the following departments, Infrastructure Development, Agriculture and Rural Development, Social Development, Health and Human Settlements, remain stagnant on an unqualified audit opinion with findings mainly due to issues of non-compliance with laws and regulations.
"In the same period, two departments have regressed with education losing its clean audit and receiving an unqualified audit opinion, while Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation moved from an unqualified to a qualified audit opinion".
However, several departments continue to face challenges. The Departments of Infrastructure Development, Agriculture and Rural Development, Social Development, Health, and Human Settlements maintained unqualified audit opinions with findings, mainly due to ongoing non-compliance with laws and regulations.
"Overall, the analysis of the audit outcomes of the 2024-2025 financial year showed that the Department of Health was the only department with non-compliance across all areas due to a lack of an effective internal control environment.
"Across the departments that received unqualified audits, Health, Human Settlement, Infrastructure Development, Agriculture and Rural Development and Social Development, non-compliance with expenditure management and supply chain management laws and regulations was common, which led to increased instances of irregular expenditure.
"Consequence management remains an issue for 50% of these departments, meaning that accounting officers did not implement recommendations from completed investigations".
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