TOM EATON | Budget sounds good save for the underspending on realistic outlook

On Thursday afternoon, finance minister Enoch Godongwana was welcomed to the podium by ANC backbenchers clapping their hands in unison, a feat that reminded us that they are much more intellectually gifted than their record of the last 10 years suggests.

Just then I was called away from my screen by an overwhelming urge not to watch ANC backbenchers clapping in unison like a herd of North Korean seals.

When I returned a moment later, however, it seemed that Godongwana was going where no finance minister had gone before, by providing a scathing analysis of the havoc of the last decade of ANC rule.

Yes, SA now owes R4-trillion, but when you think about it, that’s only eight tanks of unleaded petrol.

“Infrastructure was destroyed, investor confidence was battered, and our economic prospects were dealt a severe blow,” said Godongwana.

It was remarkable stuff — until I realised he was just talking about the insurrection in July. Ah well, baby steps.

At very least, Godongwana was magnanimous enough to acknowledge the people whose money his government has been using as toilet paper these many years, noting the “resilience” of South Africans, a sentiment that produced a smattering of applause from the half-full chamber, as convincing an act of solidarity as Marie Antoinette lowering the hanky from her nose long enough to smile at an urchin outside her carriage before she told the driver to crack on.

The facade of unity seemed to slip even further when Godongwana lurched into a bizarrely partisan homage to the ruling party, claiming that the most recent election results proved that “our people continue to support the African National Congress”.

It was a fairly disturbing thing to hear, not least because finance ministers are supposed to represent everyone, no matter who they voted for. But what made it properly alarming was that finance ministers are also supposed to be good at arithmetic, and if Godongwana thinks that 29% of eligible voters supporting the ANC is a number to celebrate, then we’ve got bigger problems than Eskom.

All of this, however, was mere rhetoric, a preamble to the mini budget proper. And according to some experts, it was a pretty solid one.

Yes, SA now owes R4-trillion, but when you think about it, that’s only eight tanks of unleaded petrol.

Besides, any budget that makes Cosatu angry is probably on more or less the right track.

But if you’re still doubting that Godongwana and his boss are serious about putting us on the road to recovery, consider the mind-bending, ultra-progressive innovation he outlined as a major priority.

According to the minister, one of the state’s “immediate tasks” is — reader, are you sitting down? — to build an efficient local government that can deliver services to citizens.

I know, right? I can’t even imagine excitement in that room full of administrative Einsteins as they leaped off the bleeding edge of political theory and came up with that epoch-changing breakthrough.

And all it took them was 27 years, a violent insurrection, 130 municipalities on the verge of collapse, 70% of the population not voting and R4-trillion of debt.