Band-Aid budget over in under 45 minutes

FINANCE Minister Nhlanhla Nene made it all the way to the conclusion of his maiden mini budget speech before someone shouted "pay back the money".

FINANCE Minister Nhlanhla Nene made it all the way to the conclusion of his maiden mini budget speech before someone shouted "pay back the money".

After his medium-term budget policy statement - in which he took a no-nonsense approach, cutting budgets to create some fiscal breathing space - he launched into a long list of thank yous.

It was when he thanked President Jacob Zuma for his support "in these difficult times" that a lone voice from the opposition benches shouted the phrase "Pay back the money", a slogan made infamous by the EFF in parliament in August.

Then a few more voices chimed in.

But with just a handful of EFF members in the house, it didn't quite ring out as loudly as it did during Zuma's question time in August, which resulted in chaos and police being called in.

A few DA members joined in, shouting about the spending at Zuma's Nkandla homestead, but up until that point, the heckles from the backbenchers had been mild.

In fact, Nene's commitment to reduce the spending ceiling by R10-billion this year and R15-billion in the next financial year, earned him a rousing round of applause from most of the house.

And his mention of a R32.6-million Ebola fund for the Department of Health to control and support affected countries got another round of claps and a shout of "nice" from the benches.

ANC members, meanwhile, largely warmed to his statement that "we will not balance the budget on the backs of the poor".

And while members of the EFF, facing disciplinary procedures for their August conduct, were mostly well behaved, it wouldn't have been the fifth South African parliament without someone talking out of turn or being expelled from the house.

That voice of dissent came from the public gallery.

From a sea of suits in shades of black, blue and grey, a snoozing spectator or two and a school-uniformed group of pupils, a man rose and pointing at former finance minister Trevor Manuel, also sitting in the gallery, and yelled something about socialism.

As Nene tried to repeat his sentence, the man shouted some more. Calmly, the minister called on security to "remove that disruption" and the man was led away by the elbow.

It was a businesslike speech, over within 45 minutes, and without Manuel's trademark humour or Pravin Gordhan's pharmacist's precision.

But perhaps - given that the metaphor for restraint has changed from Gordhan's "cutting the suit to fit the cloth" in February last year, and "cutting the fat" last October, to the more austere "taking the pain" this time round - Nene wanted to get it over with quickly - much like ripping off a Band-Aid.