'Gordhan has passed his first test'

"Money which is borrowed has to be paid back with interest and it will be the taxpayers who will have to foot the bill,"

But nothing happens to public servants living in 5 star hotels...
Nothing happens to public servants spending big bugs on parties...
Nothing happens about money that disappears from the state and municipality books....
It’s already BILLIONS!!!!

Speak up Mr. President – speak up …. Are these public servants entitling to these BILLIONS????

WE CAN FIX:
Unemployment (85%)… roads… infrastructures… water… electricity…housing…CRIME… with these BILLIONS – but we keep quiet – we cannot THINK!!!

The only thing that makes them grateful is that "in their narrow minded view" Gordhan did not pander to communists and labour............

Is that what you secretly wished for, Proudly_South Africa? Or are you just trying to find fault again even when people are not criticizing whomever it is you so dutifully rush to defend. You must be tired from looking for all these instances of potential criticism to this greater power you bow to.

Proudly: Corruption denialist!

When someone in the ANC mentions it, will you call them racist? Is Gavin an apartheid supporter? Do you call him Eugene Terblanche for his views?

Perhaps the realisation of the benefits of the so called "market friendly economic policies" pursued by the Mbeki administration are starting to bear fruit. One hopes that Cosatu and the SACP can begin to be fair in their criticism of the previous administration.

P-theories do it again.. "Political Parties congratulate Pravin the Pragmatist for Passing the 1st test with a Positive budget and Prudent fiscal Policy"...a Promise to Protect the Precious People and the Poor; to Promote economic Performance, to Propose better investments; to Plan for a Plenitude of Possibilities; to Pursue truth and integrity, and Prosecute and Punish Perpetrators of fraud, corruption and Public Pick-pocketing ... Positive Point made- Positive Point taken..

hmmmm i just wonder how much money will be available for proper channelling if it was not for corruption. Wow! what to do with the extra cash??? maybe teachers etc would be cared for more properly... but ah what can we say?

Sinudeity,

I am lost - who is Gavin????????

Anelda Grove,

Is it so difficult to focus on the topic. If you can read English you will understand that I am making a point and not criticizing anyone..........beware of your sharp tongue as it might cut your throat!!!!!!!!

There are indeed very, very few in the ANC and its alliance partners who are capable of intelligent, rational and coherent thought. Gordhan is one of them, and I share his view that the left is not all bad and the the right had a major share in the recent global economic disaster. I just hope that government will make work of its promise to root out corruption within its ranks AND the private sector. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill where cadre deployment has gone wrong, e.g. SABC, Land Bank, etc. This is beginning to cost us dearly.
The FF+'s views are actually irrelevant.

Sinu, who the hell is "Gavin" ?
Anyways, a sterling speech by our FinMin: a plan appeasing both socialist(left) and free market entities.

GUS @ WORK, where is the real Gus ?
What did you do with him ?
ie. in your comment you almost sound reasoned.
:-)

Of course all the parties are congratulating him, they're all getting $%#@ing increases!

Moxster and Proudly: Gordhon + Pravin = Gavin

Pardon me for assuming you guys would have figured that out.

Corruption is the biggest problem we have in government. Do you deny this?

Gus,

What happened to you??????????????????? What did "they" do to you???????????

Any fool with a pulse can perform "middle-of-the-road" tricks. Nothing miraculous here. The one simple step that could deal with almost all concerns in today's whirlwind of neoliberal priorities was once more avoided: to make money the medium of exchange, administer it on behalf of society instead of entrenching the thing as a commodity, ensuring that only a handful of people remain and continue to grow fabulously rich. "In-between" what? No-one can serve two masters. There is no "in-between" in neoliberal capitalism, only appeasing the majority whilst hatching more brutal plans to erode their basic living conditions further. Well done Gordhan! You have come of age. Sterling service to the financial elite, this is. [No praise here. This is a criticism].

it is very nice to stay in this country and i reckon, its like no other place in the world. we have all types of people and honestly even some poor souls that the only thing they know is to complain. a number of people know nothing other than complain about what the ANC do and does bot do. They make noise about corruption and crime and for a man of my age, i know enough that anyone who complains about corruption is himself the most corrupt individual alive. you are not allowed in ths country to witness corruption and not report it. on that basis, anyone who says someting about corruption, he is merely telling us about himself. the ANC government s very fit to run this country and we will rule this contry for no less than 600 years and those who keep on calling the majority of this country's citizens illeterate and all that, better do the best thing for themselves and leave this country. we do not need people with such corrupted micro minds such as Gus and Sipho Hu. fortunately for the ANC, all such people have gone to the Confuse people's congress (cope). before the elections, such shameful people were making all the noise about winning elections, ofcourse in partneship with their anti-ANC media and the scopions and all Thabo's boys club. they made so much noise that i lost whatever little respect i had for some of them.

keep on dreaming and complaining but consider my advise seriously, find another country made of coconuts and popcorn leaders who think like yourselves, and who knows, you may become ministers and the rest, i do not want to know.

Sinu, why don't you just admit that you effed up on the 'Gavin' thingy/typo/whatever ..... tsk , tsk, tsk ...

Vuyiso, it is a pity that you've only mentioned two (Gus and SiphoHu) in your list of personae non grata, but your raw rebuttal is quite refreshing. Well done !

So anybody who complains about corruption is corrupt?

Thats the WORST rebuttal Ive ever heard in my life.
With that said, anyone who ignores corruption,
is IGNORANT.

Sinu, who have missed the boat once again, as usual:
Anyone who is aware of corruption and has proof, but does nothing about it, is guilty of a crime, and therefore themselves corrupt.
Simple really !

Moxster: Thats not what Ngcengeni said.

As for your statement, thats exactly how I feel about the ANC. Covering for cadres, burying corruption scandals left and right.

Apartheid conscripted mercenaries want to lecture us about good governance and corruption.......unbelievable!!!!!!!

You left the country bankrupt and your hands are full of dripping blood...................

Proudly_South African: And there you go again. Labeling as an apartheid mercenary, for pointing out corruption.

That makes Gavin an apartheid mercenary too.

Moxie: For one, juju knows who stole R400 million from the ANCYL. But he's protecting the names, swept it under the carpet.

........it's not your money, stop being nosy. That bald, vertically challenged DA guy (Bloom) laid a charge - ask him what happened and stop irritating us....................

Sinu, you are merely p!ssing in the wind, along with your misguided DA counterparts, and y'all know it.
No matter what article is posted, your comments invariably will include: "what about the R400mil here..." and "what about the 2billion there ..." ..... totally unrelated ranting.
That is not constructive and will merely increase your stress levels. No one takes you seriously (apart from your fellow misguided and confused few minority friends).

Sinudedeity! You confirm exactly what i said above. If you know of any comrade covering for another, (although i would be very interested to know how did you know, except if you are or were part of it)then you need to do the simple thing if you are a law abiding citizen, simply report it! otherwise you are just halucinating. remember our media has sold millions of copies saying JZuma is corrput, in the process, collaborating with the scorpions to feed us with those lies and garbage. as you know GIGO. That's the kind of jounerlism we have in this country. they just wait and hope Ngcuka or his bodies to give them stories to run, and discredit innocent people. Remember when the media dilibertely distorted Judge Squires's judgement? The media implicated JZ even in fraud count no.3 which the Judge never did? Judge Squires made a statement to correct them, but they still ran with the distorted story? that is the kind of society we are subjected to and the moment we do not engage our brains, we end up calling every Sipho and Temba as corrupt, simply because we hate them. I insist, you call anyone corrupt, I only have to look at yourself and believe you me, i would no longer trust you because its either you do corruption with that person, or you are halucinating. None of the two types of people is acceptable to me. if you know of something wrong, you take it forward or you forever shutup.

Proudly_South African: Its definitely not the ANC top dawg elites money to spend on luxury vehicles, and hotel visits. Its not their money to enrich themselves, but all of South Africa.

The people from Standerton agree with me. They had to burn shit down to be heard. I wonder what I have to burn down to get my point across? The SARS building?

So, ANC ministers should stay in shacks and ride in bicycles to do their jobs ne'...........they are black and have no business living like Botha and De Klerk used to live ne'.............

Proudly_South African: MP's get paid R1million+ a year. They do not pay taxes. They do not pay for vehicles. They do not even pay for houses or schools.

Perhaps, if they are using their OWN money, they will learn the value of OUR money.

Plus, what the officials need to realise, is that our country, is running on a deficit. Money wasted, is money that we, and our children, will have to pay back, with nothing to show for it.

To Pravin Gordhan
I am so happy that Malema didn't have his way and replace you with someone from the SABC ,Escom or the Land Bank.That would have been a disaster.

Anyway great job with the Medium Term Budget. I always had great faith in you especially after you said " Manuel makes the target and my Department betters it". Its that drive and resourcefulness that I admire.

I would like to ask " According to Malema -are you an African ?

I wish there will come a time when an article like this will exclude comments from political parties and only publish comments from independent experts, economists, analysts political analysts, civil society organisations etc.(although most of these are also politically aligned. Our social discourse, debates are dominated by politicians. This cannot be healthy as we know that political are driven by particular ideologies and are always in competition and thus one cannot expect any unbiased reflection on any social, economic or anything from politicians. As a country we need to make politics and politicians less relevant to our everyday life and the way we see the world around us. This can only happen if we focus on things that bring us together our communities, our sports, our country our nation. In this way we will be able to ensure that politicians are forced to see things in our way and will elect politicians that are like us. The only way to achieve this is start building social institutions that will make us cohesive as a nation and we cannot expect politicians to do that. Politics is inherently divisive it strives on dividing the people. The media should play an important role in driving this social revolution of which the ultimate aim is to build a nation. Its only when that is achieved that we can be able to see a situation where a government could be changed through an election. As it is now we are too divided (mainly racially)the only thing that force us to tolerate each other is that we have to share spaces.

Sinudeity vs Proudly_South African Proudly and The Moxster

Proudly South African 10 points and Sinudeity 0, thats how book makers make of the debate. I must further state Sinudeity is outclass in all arguments, in future s/he must relegate himself/herself to another forum to gain some momentum.

Gumbi: Hehe, are you malema's score keeper too? At least we know you can count all the way to 10.