Before finance minister Enoch Godongwana delivers his 2025 budget speech next Wednesday, he should visit McDonald’s.
I'm not saying he looks hungry, I'm saying that, had he consulted one of the world’s most profitable businesses, he'd have seen that the burger joint underwent a successful worldwide exercise using psychological tactics to boost sales in turbulent times.
At the beginning of this decade, McDonald’s used one of the smartest tricks by either removing or reducing the size of the currency symbol in their price formatting. Without reducing their pricing, McDonald’s enjoyed a sales increase of 9% in 2023.
Studies like $ or Dollars: Effects of Menu-price Formats on Restaurant Checks by researchers Sybil Yang, Sheryl Kimes and Mauro Sessarego have shown that currency symbols like “R” and “$” activate the same areas in our brains as physical pain.
I can hear you thinking: “And what on Earth does this have to do with our minister who suffers from millinophilia (or hat obsession in common parlance)?”
Well, a lot, actually.
Godongwana will try to pull a few rabbits from his many stylish hats when he highlights the financial, economic, and social commitments the government of national unity aims to prioritise in this year’s expenditure.
He'll once again try to squeeze billions from taxpayers to fill the government’s ever-expanding budget shortfall, ensuring that the country’s purse doesn't look like it went “all in” a bit too hard on a Weight Watchers programme.
Most South Africans are not unhappy that the minister is trying to balance economic growth with support for the less fortunate, but he should be smarter about it.
All he needs to do is omit the word “rand” every time he announces a number, and he'll be everyone’s favourite. You'll see, all of a sudden needing just ‘300 billion’ from South African taxpayers won't light up our pain receptors as much.
Like you, I don't really like the budget speech; terms such as “fiscal ratio projections”, “Appropriation Bill” and “downside risks” make me tense, never mind phrases like “fiscal slippage” which makes me imagine the minister needing to change his underwear because what he thought was a harmless, financial fart turned out to be something far more consequential.
Think about it: as an ordinary South African, you can fulfil the role of minister of finance in your own home. You probably have a helper, make use of a gardener or garden service, and, if you're really making money like the South African Mint, you employ an au pair to assist with day-to-day chores for little Kandice and Karabo.
Like most South Africans, I like things to be simple, even pleasurable. Imagine if your crush asked you out on a date and, before telling you where you were about to be treated to an amazing time, they told you just how painful it would be for them to pay for the date and that you would have to pay for the toll gate fees, car guard and half the fuel costs. This kind of behaviour doesn't do Godongwana any favours on the popularity front, though I doubt that even before this budget debacle he was ever really anyone’s crush.
A blow to the face is still a blow, even if you're backed by your job description, but there's an art to softening blows. Enoch could work harder to activate the pleasure receptors in the collective prefrontal cortex of this country. Of course, most of us want our fellow citizens’ economic situations to improve, as many of our countrymen are struggling with unemployment and the high cost of living.
So, instead of hammering home the fact that the government is going to extract even more money from middle and high-income earners to subsidise the less fortunate, our financial sugar daddy should coyly highlight to the country the benefits of such a move as a whole. Like cheap dates who say: “Let’s skip dessert and get out of here so I can be your dessert at home”, while they know their Capitec card was maxed out by their lobster main meal.
Perhaps there's still time for the minister of fiscal frolicking to try a softer approach. He should concentrate on gently encouraging endorphins to flow from the members of our population who don't rely on social services to understand that by helping the have-nots they're actually helping themselves — and they might find a place on the waiting list at the Pearly Gates as a bonus.
Think about it: as an ordinary South African, you can fulfil the role of minister of finance in your own home. You probably have a helper, make use of a gardener or garden service, and, if you're really making money like the South African Mint, you employ an au pair to assist with day-to-day chores for little Kandice and Karabo.
If you don't pay your staff adequately they might come back at night while you are sleeping to steal your Cartier jewellery or even expropriate your household contents without compensating you. So, to mitigate this, you pay them a bit more, which is actually helping you. That's how minister Godongwana should try to keep most South Africans happy.
At our date with the budget speech, we want our minister of finance to take us to one of those fancy restaurants that understands there's no need to know how much an imported piece of wagyu beef costs, as they opt to use “SQ” on the menu. This stands for Selon Qualité, a French term for “according to quality”. This is because back in the day, eateries used to judge the quality of the item served and price it accordingly. South Africans are willing to pay a fair price, as long as it's matched by the quality of services we receive.
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