Oliver twist, sugar plums, Aloe’s, Eskom, Fiscal punishment, and a drop over the debt precipice.
In 20 years of reading budget speeches, this was the thinnest, scariest, and most riddled with intrigue budget that I've seen in a very long time.
It is not necessarily only what was said in the budget speech that is relevant, you also need to understand what was not said, and in what tone some of the statements were delivered.
Let's be honest we are in dire straits in this country, we have an increasing and ever ballooning national debt, that contrary to statements made in the budget speech is being reckoned by independent economists to be closer to R3.5 trillion than the disclosed R2 trillion. The question therefore arises can we ever repay the debt.
The budget speech in itself was aligned to the SONA. This SONA had a very specific direction in terms of a long-term direction to return the country to economic prosperity and to the land of sugarplum fairies.