The overall expenditure at the end of the fourth quarter of the 2011/12 financial year was R499.5 billion of the adjusted budget. Total spending by departments has shown a decline from 98.56 per cent in 2009/10 to 97.70 per cent in 2010/11 and a slight increase to 97.77 per cent in 2011/12. Therefore, expenditure by departments has not been able to keep up with the budget increases for the past three years. To improve expenditure, a closer scrutiny on government spending is required and stricter measures need to be put in place to strengthen budget implementation and monitoring. There were indications of a negative (inverse) relationship between budget allocations and expenditure performance. This had the potential to negatively affect service delivery and the delivery of overall government priorities such as education, health, rural development, infrastructure development and job creation. The President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency Mr J G Zuma, in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on 9 February 2011, declared the year 2011/12 as the year of job creation but the decline in the expenditure trends suggests that some of these commitments will not be met. The section below outlines the expenditure by departments at the end of the fourth quarter of the 2011/12 financial year.