An amount of R942.4 million (16.48 per cent) was spent at the end of the first quarter. The Department has reported an expenditure of less than 25 per cent in all of its programmes. The lowest spending of 9.66 per cent was reported on the Administration programme while the Department spent 16.27 per cent of the Immigration Services budget. The Administration programme was allocated R1.5 billion but only spent R142 million as payments for rates and taxes to municipalities are made at the end of each quarter. On numerous occasions municipalities have expresses their concern at the lack and/or non-payment of rate and taxes owed by government departments which was a contributing factor to their poor levels of revenue collection. Municipalities have always maintained that any negative impact on their revenue collection affects the delivery of services. It is not clear whether the arrangement of quarterly payments was formally agreed upon with municipalities.