South African staff at foreign missions are receiving "exceptionally generous" living allowances of up to R1.3-million a year in addition to their salaries. They also receive education and accommodation allowances.This is according to a series of 27 public expenditure reviews conducted by independent consultants for the National Treasury and the Department of Performance Monitoring, Planning and Evaluation in 2013. The reviews will be made public today, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.But the medium-term Budget policy statement released last week detailed some of the findings, among them the high cost of the 122 missions abroad.It states that "over the past three years the rate of spending growth at foreign missions has exceeded the rate of rand depreciation. Spending growth was largely driven by higher property costs, allowances for South African staff and the growth in the number of locally recruited personnel".It states that "cost-of-living allowances are exceptionally generous, ranging from R600,000 to R1.3-million per year".Department of International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said the allowances were determined by the Department of Public Services and Administration and were paid to cover the additional expenses associated with living and working abroad.Monyela said the department would make inputs on certain aspects of the expenditure review report because it relied on "irrelevant and in some cases completely false" information.Gordhan told parliament on Thursday that because the reviews were prepared by consultants, they did not necessarily reflect the government's position.Monyela said: "This is just like chapter seven of the old National Development Plan which also made extremely flawed conclusions and recommendations. I am told that the same people who did chapter seven compiled this report, so the flaws from that report find expression in this report."In response to a parliamentary question last year, the Department of International Relations indicated that it spent about R3-billion annually on maintaining South Africa's 122 high commissions, consulates and embassies...