Tito Mboweni's budget speech aloes a reminder of his belief in SA's resilience
Former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is being remembered for his firm hand over the country's finances as it emerged from the state capture years straight into a global pandemic amid high public debt and a strained fiscus.
FILE: Minister Tito Mboweni presenting his Budget 2019 Speech during the Plenary of the National Assembly. Mboweni passed away on 12 October 2024. Picture: GCIS
CAPE TOWN - Former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is being remembered for his firm hand over the country's finances as it emerged from the state capture years straight into a global pandemic amid high public debt and a strained fiscus.
Mboweni passed away in a Johannesburg hospital on Saturday night after a short illness at the age of 65.
As much as his austerity budgets were not always popular across the board, his budget speeches delivered with an indigenous aloe plant beside him will always be a reminder of his belief in the resilience of the South Africans.
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Making an openly reluctant return to Cabinet in 2018, Mboweni tabled three national budgets before calling it quits for the final time.
In 2019, he arrived at the podium with an aloe ferox plant.
In a nod to a former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who brought plums to the House when the going was good, Mboweni would over the next two years use the aloe plant to rally South Africans to weather the storm of tougher times.
"It’s resilient, sturdy and drought resistant. It withstands the elements. We must take the bitter with the sweet. Today, I bring you a seed to prove that if we plant anew, we can return to those plum times," Mboweni said.
A year later, Mboweni returned to the House to introduce the first budget of the sixth administration, again with an aloe and another analogy.
"The aloe ferox survives and thrives when times are tough - it actually prefers less water. The previous one we had, we actually gave it too much water and it didn’t work. It actually needs less water. It wins even when it seems the odds are against it."
It's unclear what became of the budget aloes.
And while maybe not as famous as his battered brown shoes, or his pilchard and chicken dinners, Mboweni's aloe is as much a part of his legacy as the country’s seventh democratic finance minister.