R22 Billion in Unspent Grants: A Crisis of Imagination, Not Resources

By Tinashe T.T. Mpasiri

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana recently revealed a staggering statistic: between the 2020/21 and 2023/24 financial years, R22 billion of the R480 billion in conditional grants allocated to provinces was not spent. That’s nearly 5% of funds earmarked specifically to uplift communities — money that could have built schools, clinics, water systems, and roads, simply left untouched.

This isn’t just a fiscal anomaly. It is a glaring indictment of our public sector’s developmental capacity. The problem is not a lack of money — it’s a bankruptcy of ideas and an absence of foresight in how to originate, plan, and implement transformative projects.

Conditional grants are not arbitrary windfalls. They are assigned for specific outcomes — from improving education and healthcare infrastructure to expanding access to basic services. If these funds go unspent, it means communities are left waiting for development that was already funded. That is not just a missed opportunity; it is a failure of leadership.

The reasons often cited for underspending — procurement delays, bureaucratic red tape, or compliance hurdles — are symptoms, not causes. The real crisis lies in the inability of provincial departments to proactively generate and execute development ideas. There is little evidence of long-term planning or the existence of a pipeline of ready-to-launch projects. Instead, the system remains reactive and risk-averse, riddled with short-term thinking and administrative lethargy.

Moreover, the frequent withholding of funds by National Treasury due to non-compliance or poor reporting reflects not just capacity constraints, but an institutional culture that fears initiative. Rather than risk doing something wrong, many departments opt to do nothing at all. This “do-nothing” governance is safe politically but catastrophic for development.

At the heart of the issue is a lack of institutional memory, strategic vision, and competent leadership. High staff turnover, political appointments without requisite skills, and the erosion of planning units have all contributed to a civil service that struggles to think — let alone act — creatively or courageously.

We cannot continue to describe South Africa’s developmental challenges as a consequence of limited fiscal space when billions are being returned unspent. The tragedy is not in the lack of funding, but in the lack of imagination.

To change this, we need a new approach:

Provincial governments must invest in project origination capacity — planners, engineers, policy designers — who can develop robust, impactful, and implementable projects.

Treasury should create incentives for innovation and penalise chronic underperformance.

We must shift from a compliance-driven mindset to a delivery-focused culture, where communities see tangible results and government officials are held accountable for progress, not just processes.

South Africa is not poor. We are not under-resourced. We are under-led, under-inspired, and tragically, under-serving the very people these funds are meant to uplift.

It’s time to stop hiding behind procurement manuals and start building. The future is not waiting.