Not the State of the Nation Address

My fellow South Africans,

I once wrote a speech for President Thabo Mbeki, but when he delivered the address, the only words I recognised were “good afternoon”, “and”, and “the”.

During candidate Cyril Ramaphosa’s internal African National Congress (ANC) election campaign, I was occasionally asked to compose sections of his speeches on weighty subjects like the economy, for which I was both grossly underqualified and substantially over-qualified in comparison to the rest of the team.

To this day, I lie in bed at night thinking, what if I had to write the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) address – how wrong could it go?

“My fellow South Africans, I know you cringe every time you hear those words. Thank you for joining me at the State of the Nation Address 2022. I do understand that sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between the news and the Comedy Central channel.

It hasn’t been an easy start to the year. In early January, a homeless man, armed with explosives [most homeless men carry them as fashion accessories these days] and who, according to his lawyers, has both a home and a DStv decoder, mistook Parliament for an Airbnb and moved into the building, unnoticed, for 30 hours, proving that every building, not just Nkandla, should have a “fire pool”.

To quote William Wallace, “he may have burned down our Parliament, but he’s not going to take away our SONA fashion show!”

I would also like to thank the Economic Freedom Fighters for providing the arsonist, Mr Christmas Mafe, with the best legal defence that taxpayer’s political funding can buy. We hope it will do the same for whoever burned down Carnival City on the weekend. And that’s why I always bet on red.

Not long after Mr Mafe pulled off a convincing Guy Fawkes impression, Judge Zondo released to me his report into state capture in South Africa. Volumes one and two were such riveting reading, I simply can’t wait for volume three, titled Jacob Zuma and the Prisoners of Azkaban.

Zondo revealed that corruption within the ANC was far more contagious than COVID-19, and far more virulent.

When Zondo applied for promotion to the high chair of chief justice before the Judicial Service Commission, I must admit that the hearing looked very much like an episode of Squid Game.

Luckily, Zondo appears never to have called for peace in the Middle East, so he has absolutely nothing to apologise for, other than being a male. We’ll make sure that the new chief justice never feels the need to encourage peace anywhere.

As you know, we have always been completely frugal with your taxes. That’s why we have taken such a large portion of your taxes and given it to the Cubans. We’re aware that there are many South Africans starving, and the pandemic has decimated our economy, but if we cannot prop up a communist dictatorship in the Caribbean, then who are we as a revolutionary movement?

Having watched Netflix’s Tinder Swindler recently, I do know how to get more money for South Africa, so if anyone at the International Monetary Fund or World Bank is listening, “my enemies are after me, send cash”. Lindiwe, I hope you also heard that.

I regret that my best-dressed-designer revolutionary but least talented minister has now decided to take me on as champion of the under-dressed. But fear not, we’re dragging her before the ANC’s integrity commission to silence her and ensure that she can continue being shuffled from irrelevant position to irrelevant position where she can do the least amount of harm. After 27 years, we have simply run out of ministries to put her in.

Also, on the topic of being frugal, you will notice that the ANC hasn’t paid salaries to our staff in quite some time. Admittedly, we did put most of our cash into Bitcoin and NFTs [non-fungible tokens], so it looks like our staff may now have to go flip burgers at McDonald’s. Given that I own McDonald’s, I can arrange it.

As you will recall, during the past year, our COVID-19 policy was slightly derailed when the former minister of health invested our COVID-19 budget into his family bakkies and beauty salons.

I want to assure the nation that in compliance with COVID-19 safety protocols, no action will be taken against the former minister, and I have instructed the National Prosecuting Authority to keep a healthy social distance from prosecuting either him or the myriad other ANC officials who have fleeced the country.

Our greatest loss during the year was on the financial front. Minister Tito Mboweni finally called it quits to star in MasterChef Magoebaskloof, where he’s the only contestant. His recipes for pilchards and banana splits will be one of the greatest losses to our nation.

On 8 January, I was once again going to deliver the ANC’s policy statement which was written for us in 1960 in the Soviet Union and which we repeat every 8 January reaffirming our place as the vanguard of the revolution.

Unfortunately, the lights went off as I was attempting to deliver that speech, and it became almost impossible to see the people who had each paid R250 000 to sit next to me at dinner. They looked as dark as I did on the cover of the SA Jewish Report last week. It was, of course, metaphorical, I merely wished to demonstrate that we continue to meander in the dark as a nation.

Power remains one of our greatest challenges, and so let’s make sure that after the disastrous local government election results last year, we do all that it takes to keep power. Please can someone give Helen Zille back her Twitter password, we may need her if we’re to win the next election.

Finally, and in conclusion, I would like to remind everyone that after 27 years of democracy, all of our successes are our own and all of our failings are because of apartheid.

In the immortal words of Nelson Mandela, “At every State of the Nation Address, they will drag out one quote from me, but leave me out of it, I’m too busy spinning in my grave to do this crap anymore.”

Thank you, and Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.”

• Howard Sackstein is chairperson of the SA Jewish Report.