Government departments incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure to the tune of just over R1 billion in the 2016-2017 financial year‚ according to the Auditor-General’s report released on Wednesday.

Fruitless and wasteful expenditure refers to transactions that could have been avoided.

Fruitless and wasteful expenditure includes interest‚ the payment of inflated prices and the cost of unnecessary litigation.

Of the R1.023 billion incurred in 2016-2017‚ only R16 million was incurred by the audited government bodies to avoid further fruitless and wasteful expenditure or the cost of cancelling irregular contracts or the contracts of non-performers.

The amount of fruitless expenditure had increased by 17% since 2013-2014‚ when it stood at R871 million.

A total of 176 audited public bodies (83%) incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure in both the current and previous year‚ while 129 had incurred such expenditure for the past four years.

Interest and penalties on overdue accounts and late payments constituted R369 million of such expenditure‚ litigation and claims constituted R141 million‚ while other expenditure‚ such as cancellation fees for accommodation and implementation of hardware‚ resulted in R513 million in wasteful expenditure.

The expenditure was the result of the payment of interest and penalties on overdue accounts and late payments.

The Limpopo department of cooperative governance‚ human settlements and traditional affairs recorded a whopping R109 million in such expenditure‚ compared to just R2 million the previous year.

The expenditure was caused by overpayments of R109 million for the acquisition of land.

The National Treasury incurred R70 million of such expenditure‚ 96% of which was for technical support for the Oracle system which was not yet implemented.

The Financial and Accounting Services Sector Education and Training Authority incurred R22 million in wasteful expenditure as a result of a duplicate payment to a training service provider for services that had already been paid.