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The Department of Human Settlements' reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question has revealed that it spent R60 million on advertising during the 2008/09 financial year after an initial budget of R20 million. Over and above this R40 million overspent this year, another reply has revealed that the department spent R9.6 million on conferences, imbizos and seminars for the period 1 January 2006 to 1 September 2009, along with R883,000 spent on travel costs for these functions. Copies of these parliamentary replies are available upon request. Particularly concerning is the fact that R23.4 million was spent on one particular campaign which, according to the reply, was intended to "continue to profile the housing programmes, developments, achievements and challenges to beneficiaries and the general public." It is very difficult to see how R23 million could be justified on this kind of self-indulgent marketing. This was not the only expenditure item of concern. One awards ceremony cost the department R1.8 million to organise and host, another R600,000 to provide accommodation and transport for, and another R930,000 to advertise. In other words, it set the public purse back R3.3-million. While it is certainly important to make sure that key stakeholders are brought together from time to time, the fact is that we simply cannot afford to continue spending such massive amounts of money on advertising campaigns and events which rarely have a direct impact upon rolling out of services. This R9.6 million, added to the R60m spent on advertising, could have built RDP houses for another 6,500 South Africans. There is simply no excuse that funds are being wasted like this - money that should be spent eradicating the massive service delivery backlogs is instead being spent on self-congratulatory public relations campaigns and talk shops. The ministerial task team established by cabinet to "scrutinise public expenditure trends and propose cost-cutting measures" should focus on putting measures in place to curb this type of gross wastefulness within government departments. Solutions are not difficult to come by. Government could, for instance, produce a pro forma template which addresses the core needs of any conference or function and any expenditure outside of this should be separately motivated for in a letter to the Director General.