Whenever a budget is presented, there is the usual controversy as to whether one is better or worse off as a result of it. This year was no exception. One considers the budget as a transaction between oneself and the government, thinking that the government is like any other individual with whom one transacts business.

The same criticism levelled at the government on the budget is worded in such a manner as to presuppose there is in fact someone who is pocketing our taxes and giving us back crumbs for which we must say thank you.

I overheard an 'A' level student (presumably not studying business-related subjects) asking who the government was during a discussion among friends on the budget.

The minister of finance in his various pronouncements on the media after the budget did refer to the budget as a series of money flows, in and out, and his explanation of the budget was partly an effort to explain the nature of these flows.

He pointed out during the Xarabank programme that the ministers appointed to govern the country are nothing more than stewards of funds collected from the public and spent on behalf of the public. It is the government ministers' job to collect all the funds due, not because they are going to make any personal gain, but because it is their responsibility to do so.

If not all taxes due or not all charges for services rendered by a government department are collected, then someone would have got away scot free not at the government's expense but at the public's expense.

It is not the government or any of its ministers that ends up being cheated but the public at large when not all revenue due is collected or when money is spent in an abusive manner, like in the payment of social services that are not due.

This is not the same as in the case of pilferage from a shop. In that case it is the shopkeeper, an identifiable person, who is cheated, while in our case it is the rest of the population that has to make up for the uncollected revenues or additional expenditure.

Within this context, personalising the government, although helping to score political brownie points and possibly win some votes here and there, is totally incorrect. In effect, this issue of personalising the government went further when someone commented sarcastically that one should say thank you to the minister of finance as the government representative, for having implemented one particular measure.

The nature of the measure is not important at all; what is important is this concept that one should thank or not thank the government for the budget.

It would imply that any net beneficiaries from the budget are getting their funds from the personal bank accounts of the cabinet ministers, while any net payers are sending their money to these same bank accounts. It is known that nothing is further from the truth than such an assertion, which, however, is implied whenever someone speaks of the government not as a steward of public funds but as an individual who takes our money and spends it according to his whims and fancies.

So whether we support the party in government and the ministers appointed to serve as such or not, the monies collected by the government belong to the collective and all expenditure undertaken is spent on behalf of the collective. This is why we should assess the budget not so much in terms of how it affects us personally (hence the linkage between Father Christmas and the budget), but in terms of its real objectives.

Essentially the budget has two key overriding objectives - that of redistributing wealth and income in the country and that of regulating the economy.

Any collection of money and any monies spent is an exercise in redistributing wealth and income. If the government collects less taxes and reduces expenditure on public health, it is forcing the people that are less well off to devote part of their income to expenditure on health. This would result in a redistribution of income in favour of those that are better off.

Similarly if the government increases taxation or charges more for a service that a department provides and at the same time increases pensions or children's allowances, it would be redistributing wealth and income in favour of those that are less well off.

This should lead us to assess any changes in taxation and changes in expenditure in terms of how the wealth we are creating in the country is being redistributed. So one may approve the idea of a particular budget measure if the resultant redistribution of wealth and income is in one's opinion more equitable, but not on the grounds that some government minister provided those funds from one's own pocket, for which we have to give thanks.

The second key objective of the budget is that of regulating the economy. Whenever there is a change in taxation, or whenever resources for a particular initiative or programme are reduced or increased, it influences the economic activity of the country and hence regulating it.

With the government's expenditure accounting for 47.6 per cent of the gross domestic product, it is easy to understand how the government is in a position to regulate the economy through its budget.

Therefore in terms of the economy, the government acts on behalf of the people. This does not mean that the government and the people are one.

It only means that the budget should be viewed not as an economic transaction between the government and the people but as an exercise of money flows between the various segments of the population with the government acting as the facilitator of such flows.

It is within this context that the budget should be assessed - is the government being an effective facilitator of these money flows or not?