Parliament’s education select committee said on Wednesday the basic education department returned grant money it could not spend to the National Treasury.
The department told the committee on Tuesday, when it presented its Annual Performance Plan, that about R630 million in conditional grants had gone back to the Treasury, the committee said. It also reported an unqualified audit opinion for the previous financial year. The committee said the department did not say which projects were affected.
Committee chairperson Makhi Feni said the returns may point to capacity problems in the department’s financial management. “The committee is surprised that the department could return grant funding, given the extent of the needs and backlogs across the portfolio,” he said. The committee recently took on oversight of the early childhood development function, which needs large sums, and it wants the department to explain why the money was not spent or moved to areas of need.
Feni said the money was meant for schools. In his view it could have gone to buildings, sanitation, the norms and standards that schools must meet, and curriculum support, above all for early childhood development.
The department’s annual report for 2025/26 gives a wider picture. It shows a final appropriation of R38.26 billion and expenditure of R37.52 billion, which leaves R743.0 million to be surrendered to the Revenue Fund. A year earlier the figure was R90.9 million, from an appropriation of R32.64 billion. The report does not give a figure for conditional grants returned, and the committee did not say how it reached R630 million, so the two numbers should not be added or compared.
Source: Department of Basic Education, Annual Report 2025/26. Chart: Rand Desk
Most of the 2025/26 gap sits in one programme. Curriculum policy, support and monitoring spent R6.72 billion of R7.13 billion, leaving R404.9 million unspent, and R389.4 million of that came from early childhood development. The department said the 2025 Appropriation Bill was approved late, so provincial education departments received the larger early childhood development budget only in January 2026 and had three months to use it.
A smaller part came from the Basic Education Employment Initiative. The report said about R9 million of the R400 million set aside for training education assistants was unpaid at year end because payments to service providers were delayed. The department said it surrendered that balance, in line with Treasury Regulations on earmarked funds, and has asked for a roll-over so it can pay.
The committee’s letter to the department will list outstanding questions. Feni also called for consequences where financial misconduct is found, and said he expects consistent handling of school admissions and teachers who are absent, and full rollout of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act.
Future grant allocations to the department could be affected, the committee said. Rand Desk found no public response from the department to the committee’s statement by Wednesday morning.
Other stories this month have looked at unspent public money. The environment department left R829 million unspent, and Parliament’s finance committee raised concern over municipal pension debts.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana tables the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament at 14:00 on Wednesday.
