INFOGRAPHIC: Government's spending priorities
Stats SA has released an infographic which puts government's spending into perspective.
The Stats SA infographic is based on recently released statistics around the total government spend for 2015/16.
It gives a clear indication as to how your taxes are being used.
According to the stats, more money was spent on the police than on primary education, and more on defence than on environmental protection.
Total government spending amounted to R1,52 trillion in 2015/16 - that's an average of R27 600 per person if we consider South Africa's population of 54,96 million people (2015 estimate).
The infographic shows that government spent more money on servicing its debt than it did on items such as housing, police, and tertiary education and hospital services.
Almost R129 billion was spent on public debt payments in 2015/16.
The contribution of debt payments has slowly crept up over the years.
In 2011/12, it was 7,2%, rising in 2012/13 (7,4%), 2013/14 (7,8%) and 2014/15 (8,4%).
In 2015/16 it rose only slightly to 8,5% (rounded off to 9% in the infographic).