{"id":879632,"date":"2026-10-16T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=879632"},"modified":"2026-10-16T11:15:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:15:42","slug":"gauteng-officials-spent-r96-million-just-on-travel-to-boksburg-heidelberg-bronkhorstspruit-birchwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/879632\/gauteng-officials-spent-r96-million-just-on-travel-to-boksburg-heidelberg-bronkhorstspruit-birchwood\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauteng officials spent R96 million just on local travel to Boksburg, Heidelberg, Bronkhorstspruit, and Birchwood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has spent nearly R96 million on travel, lodging, and meetings over the last three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes R47.9 million for conference venues and R21.7 million dedicated to road transit and shuttle services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has criticised the GDE’s spending and pointed out discrepancies in the provided documents regarding transport allocations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DA is demanding strict accountability and has questioned whether these expenses provided tangible benefits for student learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highest single expense incurred by the GDE from 2023 to 2026 was R47.88 million spent on commercial conference facilities and venues, followed by R21.67 million for shuttle and road transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accommodation accounted for R19.61 million across domestic and foreign stays, while air travel came to R3.04 million over the three-year period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travel management and agency services cost the GDE a reported R2.75 million, with the bulk of R2.59 million spent in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2024, this amount dropped significantly to R93,149, which dropped further the following year to R69,550.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vehicle hire costs amounted to about R524,000, and meals, catering, and incidental expenses totalled about R521,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GDE reported spending R14.619 million on shuttle and road transport in the 2025\/2026 financial year, but its official booking logs list only one single shuttle booking for that entire financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DA has raised concerns about this anomaly, noting that the data contains gaps and apparent inconsistencies requiring urgent clarification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The DA will submit follow-up questions demanding a complete breakdown of the R21.7 million transport expenditure, the R47.9 million spent on conference facilities, all international travel, and the inconsistencies present in these replies, particularly concerning the R14.619 million,” said the DA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting finding from the documents provided by the GDE is the dominance of conference venue spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conference facilities and venues accounted for R47.88 million, which is nearly 50% of the entire R96 million expenditure recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High expenditure amidst a provincial financial crisis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2023\/2024 alone, venue bookings cost the GDE an apparent R23.83 million, the bulk of which was allocated toward the Examination & Education Related Services programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This raises questions about why state-owned facilities or school halls were not used to reduce costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the GDE was asked to provide the top ten travel destinations with the highest expenditure, it listed destinations such as Boksburg, Heidelberg, Bronkhorstspruit, Birchwood, and Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these locations are located either within or very close to the border of Gauteng, which makes it alarming that local intra-provincial trips accounted for some of the highest accommodation, venue, and transport costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DA highlighted the severe financial pressure faced by schools in Gauteng and questioned why the GDE spent such a large sum of money while public schools struggle to survive on operational budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe department must explain how this expenditure benefits education and whether more cost-effective alternatives could have freed up funds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Gauteng Provincial Legislature member and DA Gauteng spokesperson for education, Michael Waters, revealed that Gauteng schools were waiting for R971 million in Norms and Standards funding, months after the money was due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that Gauteng schools were suffering the consequences of a provincial financial crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has admitted that these delays are preventing schools from purchasing essential teaching materials,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence presented to the Gauteng Legislature\u2019s Education Portfolio Committee has revealed a concerning decline in the province\u2019s financial situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gauteng Provincial Treasury previously maintained reserves, enabling it to provide timely cash allocations to schools for Norms and Standards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these reserves have now been depleted, resulting in several-month delays for schools in receiving their expected funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery day funding remains unpaid, the financial pressure on schools intensifies. Schools still have financial obligations to meet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gauteng Department of Education has been questioned by political parties after revealing R96 million in travel costs over the last three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":879654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2111064877540192292","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2239070666913332","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18111154271058931","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22560,9844],"class_list":["post-879632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-democratic-alliance-da","tag-gauteng-department-of-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879632"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880156,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879632\/revisions\/880156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}