Government must be sensitive to the needs of people when spending money, South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Monday in Johannesburg.

Responding to a question about the purchase of luxury cars for government officials, Nzimande, who is also Minister of Higher Education, said he wished the question had not come up.

However, he said what he did want to say was that while "I'm not speaking for Cabinet", Cabinet was currently assigning certain Ministers to look at austerity measures, and the SACP supported this.

"We need to look holistically at austerity measures but beyond just the recession," he said at the release of a discussion document on the SACP's special national congress.

"We need to say, what do we need to do especially that government does not appear insensitive to the needs of the people?"

Nzimande stressed that he was not saying what happened with the purchase of cars was him insinuating that government was being insensitive to the people.

Nzimande raised eyebrows recently when he bought a ministerial car for R1,1-million.