The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Thursday defended its R4,7-million expenditure on World Cup tickets, saying that it was not unusual compared with what other countries had done.

"The DTI wishes to reiterate that we targeted the 2010 FIFA World Cup as an opportunity to leverage investment promotion benefits by amongst others inviting key existing and potential foreign investors into a hospitality programme in order to interact with them along with key local business actors," the DTI said in a statement.

This was within their mandate and as far as they knew, their purchase of the tickets predated any government guidance on the matter.

On Wednesday, the National Treasury said that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan would soon meet the Auditor-General and the chairperson of Parliament's watchdog public accounts committee to discuss ticket and hospitality purchases of R130-million by parastatals and government departments.

So far, the transport department said its entities had spent R19-million.

Eskom, which until recently teetered on the brink of financial collapse and was owed R189-million in arrears by local, provincial and national government, spent R12-million.

PetroSA and Transnet spent R24-million, the Free State provincial government and the Mangaung municipality spent almost R22-million, SA Airways, the recipient of a recent bailout, spent R23-million and the SABC, which last year could not pay its creditors, spent R3,3-million.

The National Health, Education and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) joined the growing rumblings against the purchases saying: "It is morally, ethically and criminally wrong to hear of such a wasteful expenditure of the taxpayers' money when [the SA Revenue Services] is busy cracking down on all those who do not pay their taxes and when our hospitals are running out of essentials."

They were also not happy with former Finance Minister and now Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel's likening of the expenditure to private companies entertaining clients to make contacts. Manuel's message was that it could be acceptable for the parastatals to spend the money to make business contacts, but that it was a "different story" for government departments.

"The people of this country deserve a lot better after they were promised a government that will work 'faster, harder and smarter ' to address their immediate concerns and delivery services," said Nehawu, which demanded harsh action against anyone found to have acted inappropriately.