At the dawn of our democracy, and not the new dawn, we knew the extent of the challenge that lay before us as a nation. This was the era when our leaders brought us together - united in our diversity under the banner of the rainbow nation. This was the era when we came together and developed our national compact, our Constitution. This was the era when we collectively dragged ourselves out of the apartheid era induced junk status and achieved successive sovereign credit rating upgrades. This was the period when we received international acclaim for achieving fiscal stability, and even built a fiscal dividend. Those were the golden epoch when we realised sustained economic growth and meaningful job creation. We were the world's miracle.