Wasteful government spending of R24.8 billion could have been used for numerous projects to the benefit of South Africans, the SA Institute of Race Relations said on Monday.

"We have become so inured to seeing examples of corruption and wasteful expenditure running into millions and billions of rand that it is easy to forget quite how much money this really is and what could be done with it," research manager Lucy Holborn said in a statement.

The SAIRR was responding to a recent Auditor General report that...read more here: Wasted govt money could build 120 Nkandlas: SAIRR