Deputy Speaker, numbers don't lie. The Budget sets out, in black and white, a stark reality - a narrative - a sad and disturbing account of how trust was betrayed, and of how the hope of building a united and prosperous nation, of realising a better life for all, was ruined.
The Budget begins to quantify and project the extent of this betrayal - of the damage that was done. It points to a difficult, painful, and uncertain future - that, if drastic remedial action is not taken and implemented right now, we are then heading straight into an ANC-made iceberg - a growing national calamity of serious economic, social and political strife and discontent that threatens our survival as a nation - a crisis that will sink us.
If we were a patient in hospital, we would be in the ICU in a critical and unstable condition, hooked up to life- sustaining machinery. Our oxygen supplies would be running out and we wouldn't know if and when the power