The public enterprises department has introduced a number of austerity measures to reduce spending, it emerged on Wednesday.

There is a conscious effort by the ministry and the department to reduce spending on travel, Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan said in reply to a question in Parliament.

All domestic travel by the department's officials, including Director General (DG) Portia Molefe, was economy class.

Regarding international travel, business class would only be used if the duration of a flight was over six hours.

Otherwise, economy class applied with the exception of the minister, deputy minister, DG and deputy directors general, as well as those covered in the ministerial handbook when travelling with the minister.

Regarding car hire, Hogan said where possible, vehicles were shared by two or three officials travelling to the same destination.

In addition, the department was in the process of identifying hotels within walking distance of the office in Cape Town to further reduce spending on car hire.

Where possible, Hogan and Deputy Minister Enoch Godongwana lived in their private residences.

The department had also introduced various cost saving measures across the board within its operational areas.

These included printing and copying all internal documents in black and white and double-sided.

Only documents for external distribution or for executive management were printed in colour, and only where absolutely necessary. Where possible, documents were scanned and forwarded to recipients instead of copying and delivering hard copies.

Where viable, memory on computers was upgraded instead of purchasing new computers, and wherever possible, meetings were conducted via teleconferencing instead of travelling to meeting venues.

Another measure to reduce spending, was a decision that Hogan and Godongwana would use the old "inherited" vehicles from the previous administration.

However, two additional vehicles had to be bought for use in the Pretoria offices, but the cost of these was less than the allocated purchase amount stipulated in the ministerial handbook, she said.