Clever Ramaphosa comes up just before this so-called budget speech with his presidential manifesto, effectively redefining in the present-day environment the RDP that he was mandated to implement by Nelson Mandela. 

By playing in 1994 both the exiles and some big business, Thabo Mbeki was able to sideline him and replaced the RDP with GEAR ensuring that neo-liberal capitalism would satisfy both groups and set the country on its road to state capture later perfected by Jacob Zuma. 

We look in vain at a compromised lightweight such as Gigaba to be able to chart some hope-giving course through our present econo-social wilderness, as doubtless the person whom he replaced would have been able to do. 

But, take heart. We are set firmly on the come-back trail to where we went so disastrously wrong 23 years ago. We have a phalanx of heavyweights certain to take over soon and take us to our true destiny of greatness.