Stripped of plants, allegories, literary quotes and Bible verses, the 2023 Budget was blunt -- a stable finance framework for savings, investment and growth, structural reforms, particularly in energy and transport, and improved state capacity for public services and to fight crime and corruption.

Opposition parties criticised the R254-billion debt relief for Eskom, but as South Africa must deal with the rolling blackouts that cost the domestic economy up to R899-billion a day, it was difficult to be awfully vocal about it.

On Budget Day, Stage 6 rolling blackouts left South Africans without electricity for 10 hours, after scheduled power cuts hit South Africans every day in 2023. There were more than 200 days of rolling blackouts in 2022.

Everyone knew tough choices and decisions needed to be made. As Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said on Wednesday in his 2023 Budget speech: "This is not an austerity Budget. It is a Budget that makes tough trade-offs in the interests of the country's short- and long-term prosperity."

As always, the devil is in the details.

Spinning the R254-billion as debt relief for the troubled Eskom -- R184-billion of this actually is a loan, according to the draft law -- the Budget...