Mampara of the year: Jacob Zuma

Since Nkandla’s most decorated son has claimed this title numerous times in the past few years as a result of his chaotic reign, Hogarth is considering a drive to northern KwaZulu-Natal to deliver a lifetime achievement award to Jacob Zuma in person.

When he reluctantly stepped down as president in 2018, we thought this mampara of unimaginable proportions would spend his retirement in the company of his children and grandchildren, as many men his age do. We expected him to only leave Nkandla to appear in court for alleged corruption or before the Zondo commission to account for selling the country to his friends, the Guptas.

But alas, Baba Ka D spent the year using every trick in the book to avoid responding to questions at the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture. The Nkandla Crooner stunningly insisted that he could not appear before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, laughably claiming that Zondo was an old pal who had fathered a child with a sister of one of his estranged wives. The esteemed judge refuted the ridiculous claim and ordered Baba Ka D to present himself to the commission at once.

When all those acts of desperation failed, Zuma shocked the nation when he walked out of the commission without permission, which resulted in the commission filing a criminal complaint against him. It therefore does not come as a shock that you, dear readers, decided to declare this giggling moegoe Mampara of the Year 2020. He received 37% of the votes, more than double that of the second contender.

It’s a spectacular return to mamparadom as he last clinched it in 2018 and had won it many other times before, hence a lifetime achievement award is now apt.

Hot on his heels is Yakhe Kwinana, a former SAA board member, who got 15% of the votes for displaying an extraordinary ability to contradict herself when trying to account for the mess the board left at the national carrier, including dodgy payments to herself and other buddies from those tendering for contracts at SAA and SAA Technical. She and her lawyer had Zondo, normally a calm figure, losing patience numerous times. She came close, but Baba Ka D had opened quite a big gap.

At No 3 is another regular on these pages and a previous contender for Mampara of the Year, Helen Zille, who received 12% of the votes.

MamparaZille is obsessed with posting controversial Tweets, including this one that amounted to apartheid denialism: “Lol, there are more racist laws today than there were under apartheid. All racist laws are wrong. But permanent victimhood is too highly prized to recognise this.”

She has made her way back to the DA, having been re-elected federal council chairperson at a virtual congress held in November, yet her party still wonders why its support is waning.(Mis)communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams made a fantastic debut at No 4 with 9.4% of the votes.

At the height of the hard lockdown, Ndabeni-Abrahams pulled a not-so-stellar performance when she breached restrictions on social visits by paying a courtesy call on her friend, Mdu Manana, the two pulling a Mampara move by posting pictures of their lunch on social media. President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended our Mampara of the Year finalist for two months and docked her one month’s pay.

Former environmental affairs minister Nomvula “Mama Action” Mokonyane made No 5, garnering 7.4% of the votes. She appeared before Zondo to explain why Bosasa kept blessing her with year-end groceries that included meat, alcohol and other items. She mumbled when trying to explain a payment of R2.2m from “family friend” Thaba Mufamadi towards the purchase of a R3m Aston Martin parked in her garage. Mufamadi and her husband were jointly bidding for tenders.

Another top contender was that king who is not really a king, Thandisizwe Diko, husband of suspended presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko, who emerged as the looter-in-chief of public funds at a time the country needed all the money it could get to fight Covid-19. When it emerged he’d scored contracts worth hundreds of millions to supply personal protective equipment, which he did not deliver, while overcharging the government, he barked: “Scandal? What scandal?”

Other worthy candidates included businessman Vuyisile Ndzeku, who suffered astonishing amnesia about pocketing millions from dodgy contracts at SAA and SAA Technical. He had us in stitches when at one point he claimed to have forgotten the date of his own wedding.

Cape Town mayor Dan Plato drew widespread criticism for his lack of compassion in reacting to metro cops forcibly removing a naked man from his shack, which was marked for destruction. He also made the top 10, but got the least votes. In the end, the country spoke, and the Nkandla Crooner is once more your Mampara of the Year.