Budgets used to be fun
Years ago, in our dark apartheid era, the annual budget speech from the Minister of Finance had something of a carnival atmosphere about it. The larger stockbroking firms would try and secure a live link up to the then M of F (Barend du Plessis) and invite clients around to listen to various experts discuss the budget and its implications. The best party in town by far used to be the one held by stockbroking firm Frankel Kruger.
They never failed to get hold of the M of F in addition to the governor of the Reserve Bank and to have a summary of the main points of the budget printed out and ready for their clients almost as he stopped speaking. Then it was off to the senior partner's sprawling house in the northern suburbs for the evening where a vast marquee complete with dining tables would be laid out. Needless to say the food and drink flowed, particularly if you happened to be a cherished client of the company.
Businessman Derek Keys succeeded Barend du Plessis in the run up to the 1994 election as a calming influence aimed at jittery foreign investors. Then, in 1996, Trevor Manuel took over from another caretaker M of F, Chris Liebenberg (who had been appointed by Nelson Mandela despite his lack of political affiliation), and famously kicked off his long and distinguished term of office with an unfortunate remark about "amorphous markets".
Despite the faltering start though, a Manuel budget speech was always a treat to listen to and in the earlier days of his term of office there was generally something worth discussing. Pundits would be invited to radio and TV studios to chew over the budget, daily newspapers would run budget specials and there was generally enough meat left on the bone to fill a tongue in cheek column in a Sunday newspaper.
Sadly, those days are gone. A few years ago I was invited onto a TV programme to "unpack" the budget speech and declined the offer because there was little room for the minister to manoeuvre which suggested that there would be very little, apart from the rather tedious "sin" taxes, to discuss. Any tax relief there may be would be minimal and hardly worth getting excited about.