Budget Speech Competition for students celebrates 50 years

One of the longest running youth competitions in South Africa celebrates a major milestone this February – the Nedbank and Old Mutual Budget Speech Competition – marks 50 years of powering Africa’s future leaders.

Founded in 1972, the Budget Speech Competition, as it is more widely known, has become a highly anticipated annual event that coincides with the delivery of the national Budget Speech in parliament. Designed as a platform to empower and create exposure for the country’s brightest young minds, the competition has created opportunities for thousands of aspiring young thinkers to understand the fiscal policy process as well as contribute their creative ideas towards solving some of our country’s most pressing socio-economic challenges.

The competition is a public-private partnership involving Nedbank, Old Mutual, National Treasury and various academic institutions across the country. Run as an annual essay competition, it calls on entrants to put themselves in the shoes of the Finance Minister to solve topical complex policy issues. The themes are updated for every round of the competition to closely reflect the socio-economic and political challenges of the day.

This year, student finalists have responded with their thoughts on the public sector wage bill as an expenditure control measure as well as on debt default risk and its potential fallout. From hundreds of entries, a stringent adjudication filter process was held, led by leading economists and thinkers, to whittle it down to the essays with the very best ideas.

This year’s 19 undergraduate and postgraduate finalists hail from universities across the country, including the University of Fort Hare, WITS, UCT, Stellenbosch, UWC and Monash.

The competition has produced an impressive list of alumni in its five decade existence. Some of these include:

• Anel Bosman, who participated in 1987 and became the first female winner, is now the Managing Executive at Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking

• Isaah Mhlanga, the 2008 first runner-up who has gone on to become Executive Chief Economist at Alexander Forbes

• Khetha Dlamini, the 2012 first runner-up, who went on to become the Director of Fiscal Policy Planning at National Treasury before taking up a Mandela-Rhodes scholarship at Harvard University

• Divan Jagers, a finalist in 2015 who is now employed by Old Mutual as an Actuarial Specialist.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on February 23.

PERSONAL FINANCE