Raw meat of the budget

Yes, I know the budget is old news, but it has taken me this long to work up the courage to tackle something my brain was never designed to understand.

- 

I do, on the other hand, know that when you empty a bucket of raw meat among a pack of hyenas, the quick will always get more than the slow.

As tourists flock to Tanzania to see the Serengeti migration, so too will people one day visit South Africa to witness the feeding frenzy in the weeks following the budget.

Instead of wildebeest, we have herds of civil servants stampeding through government offices clutching bags stuffed with tenders and banknotes to be shared among friends, relatives, police and prosecutors.

Here, the raw meat is R2.59 trillion worth of taxpayers' money. Okay, maybe not all of it. I hope the government has more income-generating schemes other than bleeding the 1.5% of South Africans who pay 60% of all personal income tax.

Let me pour a stiff drink and peruse this weighty document issued by the so-called Treasury.

In his foreword, director-general Duncan Pieterse says economic growth is likely to average 1.8% over the next three years.

This is what I got for maths in my Grade 10 mid-term exams. My parents hit me, set the dog on me and locked me in my room for three days with no food or water.

I'm not saying this should happen to Pieterse, but someone ought to bear the consequences.

I have just discovered that 1.8% is wildly optimistic. Last year, our growth was 0.8%, narrowly beating fabulous countries like Yemen, Haiti and Sudan.

Our role models should be those with the highest economic growth, right? If you're thinking of countries like Australia, Japan and France, you'd be wrong.