Treasury's Municipal Money reports each municipality's irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure separately. This page totals every municipality by year and ranks the largest, so the national picture and the outliers are both visible in one look.
Irregular expenditure by financial year
| Financial year | Unauthorised | Irregular | Fruitless and wasteful | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | R 18,2 bn | R 32,9 bn | R 3,8 bn | R 54,9 bn |
| 2019/20 | R 22 bn | R 26,2 bn | R 4,1 bn | R 52,4 bn |
| 2020/21 | R 20,4 bn | R 21,9 bn | R 2 bn | R 44,4 bn |
| 2021/22 | R 25,4 bn | R 30,5 bn | R 4,9 bn | R 60,8 bn |
| 2022/23 | R 24,4 bn | R 27,6 bn | R 7,5 bn | R 59,5 bn |
| 2023/24 | R 31,8 bn | R 28,9 bn | R 5,3 bn | R 66 bn |
Largest irregular expenditure, 2023/24
The ten municipalities that reported the most irregular expenditure in 2023/24, of 257 that reported.
| Municipality | Province | Irregular | Unauthorised | Fruitless and wasteful |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Tshwane | Gauteng | R 2,4 bn | R 2,1 bn | R 793 m |
| City of Johannesburg | Gauteng | R 2 bn | R 2,8 bn | R 1,5 m |
| Nelson Mandela Bay | Eastern Cape | R 2 bn | R 1,4 bn | R 17,1 m |
| Emalahleni (MP) | Mpumalanga | R 1,6 bn | R 1 bn | R 384 m |
| eThekwini | KwaZulu-Natal | R 1,6 bn | R 0 | R 6,7 m |
| Buffalo City | Eastern Cape | R 1,3 bn | R 403,5 m | R 692 826 |
| Umkhanyakude | KwaZulu-Natal | R 1,2 bn | R 171,8 m | R 3,2 m |
| Mogalakwena | Limpopo | R 650,6 m | R 0 | R 6,8 m |
| Amathole | Eastern Cape | R 639,3 m | R 188,6 m | R 28,2 m |
| Cape Town | Western Cape | R 634,3 m | R 0 | R 0 |
Method
- The three totals each municipality reports to National Treasury: unauthorised, irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, as recorded in Municipal Money.
- These are the municipalities' own submissions to Treasury, as reported. They are not audited totals, and this page does not restate or check them against the Auditor-General's findings.
- Irregular expenditure means spending that did not follow the required process. It is not, on its own, a finding of fraud or loss. This page states the reported figures and nothing more.
- Amounts are in rand as reported, not adjusted for inflation.
- Provinces come from each municipality's code. No boundaries or maps: this page uses no Municipal Demarcation Board data.