[imagesource: Twitter / @ParliamentofRSA]

Yes, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is proudly showing off an aloe ferox.

It’s kind of his thing during the annual budget speech, and medium-term budgets, with Mboweni saying the aloe is “resilient, sturdy and drought resistant” and often “thrives when times are tough”.

Much like President Ramaphosa’s fynbos analogy during his SONA 2021 address, it’s never really a good sign when you’re touting a plant that can survive in the midst of immense hardship as a symbol of hope.

Should have stuck with spekboom, although even then there are caveats.

At 2PM today, Mboweni is set to deliver the budget, and given the destruction wrought by the pandemic over the past year or so, it will need a balancing act of epic proportions to revive South Africa’s economy while cutting expenses.

Mboweni will present the government’s spending framework for the next three years, and it won’t help that yesterday, Stats SA announced that the country’s unemployment rate has risen to 32,5%.

But aloes are hardy, so there’s that.

The speech usually lasts an hour to 90 minutes or so, and I applaud anybody who can stick it out.

When the speech starts, the feed below will begin streaming.

[source:sabc]