HOGARTH | A world-beating royal decree - TimesLIVE
By the time you read this, delegates at the South African Football Association (Safa) congress would have chosen between sleepy Danny Jordaan and Durban tycoon Sandile Zungu for president.
Old as he is, Hogarth is always keen for fresh blood and, for a while, was excited by the idea of the AmaZulu FC boss taking charge of Safa House. But then, as election day drew close, Zungu showed a feudalist side of him that left Hogarth wondering if he’d be an improvement on Jordaan at all.
In a bid to cajole delegates from his home province to back him, Zungu is reported to have warned that those from the province who didn’t vote for him would be “defying” Zulu King Misuzulu KaZwelithini.
The only other person Hogarth knew who would invoke the Zulu monarch at the drop of a hat whenever things didn’t go his way was the late cantankerous chief. Hogarth doesn’t think that’s the kind of leadership our football needs if we are going to be world-beaters.
Speaking of the Zulu king — those familiar with the king’s language would know that a Zulu monarch is also referred to as umlomo ongathethi manga (the mouth that speaks no lies).
Last weekend, King Misuzulu was addressing the annual reed dance ceremony and told his throngs of supporters how angered he was when President Cyril Ramaphosa and other heads of state convened the Sadc summit in Durban but didn’t bother to invite him. So incensed was he, the monarch confessed, he even contemplated sending Zulu warriors from the hostels to disrupt the ceremony.
However, a day later, the department of international relations & co-operation (Dirco), which was responsible for organising the event, issued a statement saying the king had been invited but never responded.
Hogarth noticed that many of the publications and broadcasters in the province who carried the king’s initial complaint shied away from reporting Dirco’s clarification. Was it because Dirco’s statement put in doubt what is often said about the king’s mouth?
Having closely followed the exposé of former defence minister and National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s corruption scandal by this newspaper, Hogarth has not found much surprising about the proceedings in her current court case — not even her claim that she couldn’t tell the “difference between a wig and a weave”.
But, on her second day of testimony, even Hogarth was a bit startled to hear the veteran politician, who has also run organisations as big as the ANC Women’s League, say the reason she paid a contractor more than R1.5m in cash for work done at her private home was because she struggles to do electronic funds transfers (EFTs).
If activist Allan Boesak gave South Africa the term “struggle bookkeeping”, Hogarth thinks Mapisa-Nqakula must be known as the mother of “struggle banking”.
But then again, Hogarth should not be surprised, as one of her former bosses turned out to do “under-the-sofa-cushion banking”. In foreign currency, nogal!
Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane flew out of the province the other day on an important mission. His office’s official X account punted the trip as “powering progress across borders — a new era for regional energy and growth”. One would have been forgiven for thinking that the premier, who is rumoured in some quarters to be hoping to be the next ANC deputy president, was headed for an important business meeting beyond our shores.
But, as Hogarth later learnt, the whole thing was about him signing “a memorandum of understanding” between the Eastern Cape government and its Northern Cape counterpart.
The way some of our premiers behave and talk about “borders”, Hogarth wonders if they are not confusing provincial governments with the bantustans of yesteryear.
