Mampara of the year | Pick your fighter

It’s a pity last year’s overall winner Carl Niehaus could not make the cut to defend his title. However Carl is well represented, as some of his allies fought hard to be shortlisted for this year’s accolade.

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla

The Ivanka of Nkandla is one of the favourites to scoop this award. She was crowned mampara twice this year. First for yearning for the secession of KwaZulu-Natal and then for trying to incite violence on the anniversary of the July 2021 riots after the Constitutional Court ruled that her shady daddy should never have been released on medical parole.

Themba Khumalo

Bishop Khumalo, who was the CEO of South African Tourism at the time, must have been overwhelmed by the spirit of generosity when he tried to donate R1bn of taxpayers' money to English Premier League underachievers Tottenham Hotspur under the guise of a sponsorship deal. Good thing the government put the brakes on the adventurism.

Murunwa Makwarela

Another alleged man of God who brought Christianity into disrepute is former Tshwane mayor Murunwa Makwarela. After we found out that he was insolvent — and therefore disqualified from being a councillor — he allegedly forged a rehabilitation certificate. Quite ironic for a senior pastor at the Righteousness of God Ministries.

Siboniso Duma

The ANC boss in KwaZulu-Natal deserves to be a mampara anyway for following premier Nomusa Dube around and stealing her limelight. But this year he went the extra mile. He first became a mampara after a publicity stunt in which he bought an electric stove and kettle for a family that had no electricity because of load-shedding. Later,  he accused uMngeni municipality mayor Chris Pappas of being a “racist boy” because he pointed out that some ANC comrades are thieves.

Kabelo Gwamanda

Another double winner this year was Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda. He took the mayoral throne under a dark cloud for allegedly defrauding his neighbours out of their stokvel money. When we had all forgotten about this, he refused to attend a meeting called to discuss Jozi's water crisis — saying he was too big to be meeting ministers.

Andre de Ruyter

Sometimes dubbed the Prince of Darkness, he delved into an old apartheid-era security contacts book and found investigators to probe the corruption at Eskom. When he was done he made wild allegations about politicians being involved in looting Eskom, without telling us their names. All that at a cost of R50m.

Prince Mashele

This mampara was stingy with the truth by not telling us that his “unauthorised biography” of Herman Mashaba was actually approved by the ActionSA leader — and that he pocketed a whopping R12m for his troubles.

Anita Lloyd

She shot her mouth off and a few weeks later her husband was out of a job. Anita Lloyd boasted on Die Real Housewives van die Wynlande that “my husband is the boss of KWV”. She then went on a rant about how being poor is “bad sh*t”, saying: “If I didn’t have any money, I’d jump from a building.”

Nicole Barlow

Angry at the report that Gwede Mantashe snubbed a ceremony to sign a green energy agreement, this clown entered mamparadom by suggesting that Uncle Gweezy should have suffered the same fate as Chris Hani — the struggle martyr who was assassinated before he got to see democracy. She later issued a lukewarm apology, but by then it was too late.

Tom Curry

Tom was bitter that the Springboks walloped his English team in the Rugby World Cup semifinals so he tried to curry favour with our opponents in the finals, the All Blacks, by blocking hooker Bongi Mbonambi from playing in the final. Mbonambi’s alleged crime? Curry said Mbonambi called him a “white c**t”. It turns out all he needed was an Afrikaans lesson, as the hooker had referred to the wit kant — white side.