About 5m of us set to be held at budget-point
In fact, this robbery has become in institution, taking place every year around this time.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has come under fire from the DA over his admission that part of the IMF loan could be used to pay salaries. Picture: Emmanuel Croset
I went down to the local police station the other day to report a crime: a serial armed robbery.
The constable looked perplexed when I said the robbery hasn’t occurred yet, and would take place sometime between tomorrow and the end of the year.
I tried to explain as best I could.
By all accounts, a villain named Tito Mboweni will tomorrow, armed with a budget speech, announce that millions of South Africans will be robbed of their hard-earned money to finance a criminal gang going by the name of the ANC.
“Huh?” said the constable. “Armed with a speech?”
Yes, I retorted, it’s become the most feared and powerful weapon used to commit the most heinous financial crimes.
This Mboweni character will tell all the hard-working South Africans – with the emphasis on working – to hand over their money so that it can be used to line the pockets of his comrades-in-Calvin Klein.
“This sounds serious,” said the constable. “But it’s good that you have the names of these crooks.”
Well there are many more of them, but I’ll get to that later, I continued.
The thing is, about five million of us will be held at budget-point, for the umpteenth time of our lives. In fact, this robbery has become in institution, taking place every year around this time.
“Did you resist?” asked the constable. “And how much did this Mboweni take?”
Is he daft? Does he not know the consequences of saying no to Mboweni’s heavy?
Continuing, I tried to explain the complexity of this financial crime: the fact that we are yet unaware of the amounts in question, and that we won’t have to hand it over at the end of the speech but that we will be paying it off in monthly instalments.
“Like a stokvel?” asked the constable, his eyes lighting up. Exactly, but a stokvel where everybody pays and only one gets all the money all the time.
“And you keep on paying?” asked the constable.
It was my turn to be perplexed.
“Eish, sounds more like a do-it-yourself robbery,” he said.
Danie Toerien.
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