Gauteng finance MEC Barbara Creecy has criticised provincial government departments that failed to reach their spending targets. Creecy presented her report for the first quarter of the 2015-2016 financial year on the performance of provincial departments to the portfolio committee on finance on Friday.Provincial departments must spend 25% of their annual budget each quarter and reach full budget expenditure by the end of the financial year. Leeway of 5% is allowed.Most departments in Gauteng either overspent or underspent the conditional grants they received from the Treasury.The biggest over-spenders were the departments of social development (43% over) and community safety (40%).The worst under-spenders were the departments of human settlements ( 16%), sport, arts and culture (6%), and agriculture and rural development ( 3%).Only the departments of transport and education spent within the stipulated range.Said Creecy: "Expenditure on conditional grants has not been good and this is an area of concern for us."We have to continue to liaise with departments to push their procurement processes. Once the plans are approved at national level, then the delays are in the supply chain management."Overall, we are meeting the target [of 25%] but it is because of the overspending by some of the departments. Our real areas of concern are human settlements, agriculture and sport."Another area of concern was that departments were not spending efficiently on infrastructure grants: overall performance was only 15%.Said Creecy: "Traditionally in provincial government, there has always been poor infrastructure expenditure in the first quarter."The reason for that is that departments do not issue tenders early enough."We have been working for a long time on trying to get infrastructure tenders issued in the last quarter of the previous financial year. We are not over the hurdle of advance planning, but we are doing better than we used to do."..