NEWS YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW R3960 (including VAT) 193 noseweekNOVEMBER n The secrets of Cecil John Rhodes n Mercury fire: Still no answers n Randgold judgment: Investec 2015 spins it, lawyers cream it Reared for slaughter 00193 104042 771025 9 Your favourite magazine is now ISSUE 193 • NOVEMBER 2015 available on your iPad and PC StentHoly Father, 7phone home FEATURES 8 Still time for action Randgold judgment: Investec claims 34 Letters a victory but it ain’t so 36 Editorial 11 Cecil John Rhodes The role of secret sex and secret schemes AVAILABLE 38 Smalls in the expansion of the British Empire ON YOUR 17 Absa keeps widow waiting TABLET Bank takes years to settle claim COLUMNS 20 Lions to the slaughter 35 Down King of the beasts factory farmed to satisfy Download your and Out vanity of trophy hunters 36 Letter from digital edition today Umjindi 24 The poisoned land Mercury contamination haunts neighbours both single issues and 37 Last Word subscriptions available 29 For whom the e-toll tolls Sanral chief faces fierce new opposition PLUS never miss a copy – 32 Books, Books, Books with back issues available to Season’s reading download and store 35 Save the sharks And imprison your kitty DOWNLOAD YOUR DIGITAL EDITION AT www.noseweek.co.za or % 021 686 0570 NOSEWEEK November 2015 3 Letters Corobrik: a family affair Investec’s men) and – of moral com- they have, surely gentlemen of that pass fame – Reuel Khoza of AKA era (for whom I have great respect) IN RESPONSE TO THE LETTER (NOSE192) BY Capital. can go to very nice five-star hotels C Roberts, “Listen up ye execs”, and The moral compass certainly needs and have exclusivity there? your article in nose190, I as a Corobrik to be re-calibrated at Horobrik… err… All said, it is sad to see them go... insider can confirm that although Corobrik. Chris White Allin Dangers did not get his desired Insider East London promotion, Corobrik has employed Durban two of his sons, probably as a reward n WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE WANT for being the trigger man in getting to belong to such a back-biting low- rid of loyal colleagues the way he did. Disappointed aliens life outfit as the Cape Town Club These two pale males were appointed DESIREE ERASMUS’S REPORT ON HOW THE (“Breaking the rules”, nose192)? Su- against Corobrik’s affirmative action blurring of secular conspiracy and the zanne should consider herself lucky policies. Christian Fringe’s interpretations of to be out of it! Meanwhile, Corobrik ex-CEO and biblical prophecy has led to an in- Mike Turner now part-time chairman – though crease in the internet orgy of predic- Johannesburg more often to be found playing golf at tophiles from religious and secular Mount Edgcombe – Peter du Trevou, sources (nose192, “Holy Father phone n I’M KINDA GLAD TO HEAR THAT THESE has allowed his son Christopher to be home”) would explain why we haven’t private elite clubs (CT Club, Rand unilaterally appointed as the com- been contacted by aliens. Clearly, Club, etc) are moving on and being pany’s Management Accountant – and there’s not enough intelligence on forced to become part of the real SA! a junior executive board member, Earth (Noseweek readers excepted, of I was told to organise an event at without advertising the position either course) to make the effort worthwhile. the Rand Club in Johannesburg in internally or externally. Elio Boezio about 1987 when I was a manager at The Department of Labour and/or Port Elizabeth the JHB Chamber of Commerce (the the Minister of Mineral Resources first woman manager of the Chamber [they mine clay] need to look into the movement – imagine that!) and was dubious employment practices at Is Capitec the only one? told I’d have to use the side door to Corobrik, as do major shareholders “CAPITEC JUST ANOTHER BIG BROTHER gain entry to the club. Well, suffice it Investec (Board members P Amm, bank?” Your article cautioning readers to say between my (woman) colleague G Hirschowitz and R Baker are to read the small print before signing and me a different venue – where up for a Capitec account was we were treated as people – got the most interesting. It would be business. nice to have the same mag- Perhaps those old boys can see nifying-glass look at all the where their policies led – to insolven- other big banks’ fine print! cy and downsizing. Gus Don Pearce Pam Herr Noordhoek Sun Valley PO another colonial invention Back-biting boys’ clubs THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN YOU OMITTED TO MENTION Post Office (Post-mortem for the Post Kelvin Grove amongst the Office, nose192): It’s a case of a gov- still-surviving old gentlemen’s ernment ship full of idiots steered by clubs (“The long goodbye”, a captain who hasn’t the faintest clue nose192). I have been a as to why the ship is sinking. But who member there for 45 years. It cares anyway? It’s just another one of seems to be a very successful those dumb colonial inventions that club; young keep coming in nobody needs. and the old stay on... Surely We’ll take the money though, until all could see that “boys only” it dries up and then we all can be gentleman’s clubs couldn’t promoted to other positions to see off last; those days are long gone. further irrelevant colonial inventions. Considering the costs that A Dryburgh you mentioned and the debts Durban North 4 Post mortem... PO another colonial invention Old story: new outrage We hope to be setting up an interview with the superintendent in the near Passports IT IS WITH UTTER DISGUST THAT MY future and are positively itching to husband, former Superintendent Kru- hear the veteran crime-buster’s memo- ger of the Commercial Branch, and I ries of Joburg’s colourful gangland My fngers have lost hold have just discovered that completely past. fallacious information had been pub- While researching this story back in on their identity. 2007 we were unsuccessful in contact- lished about him in nose91 (“Why the Their grip has loosened Israeli mafia hit Winnie’s friend”, May ing Supt Hans Kruger, but a reliable 2007). source involved in the police investiga- and their patterns have become less Your journalist’s skills and sources tion into the fake R5 coin scam told are seriously questionable. The fact us how the superintendent managed to clear. that a paper could be allowed to run persuade Hazel Crane’s lover, Voitec, Ridges once frm – loops, arches, whorls an article without proper investiga- (real name Wosiewich Pierun) to tion of the facts, boils down to an act turn State witness against the scam’s are undermined, worn out that is, in itself, unconstitutional. mastermind, Israeli mafia thug Zion and smoothed with toil. This article boils down to slander of Malka. a public servant’s integrity and is not It was widely believed that it was Their individuality has blurred taken lightly. this “selling out” of Malka, who eventu- You are hereby requested to im- ally got eight years for minting and and now no longer corresponds mediately retract the slanderous issuing the fake coins, that cost Hazel to what was stored on fle. statement, by way of an apology, to Crane her life (she was gunned down be published by no later than close by a mystery assassin in November of business on 7 October 2015, as 2003). And as I scrabble among exhumed your incorrect facts have harmed the Far from our story defaming the reputation of an individual who duly good Super, surely persuading Voitec to memories, served his country. take a Section 204 was and is accepted I lift impressions from In the absence of my husband being police procedure to assist the securing allowed to rectify the situation by way of a conviction? the things I’ve touched and try of an interview, you will be summoned Letting Hazel Crane off the hook in to compensate this violation of my exchange for Voitec’s cooperation to to fnd what I can recognize [sic] his rights. We await your call snare the big fish was no big deal and as saying – regarding the interview, and confirm in no way reflects adversely on Supt that he is available for such, during Kruger. This is me. the course of the next week. Crane’s role in the scam had been I trust that we shall hear from peripheral at best. your offices, in order to set the record But, eight years for issue 91 to reach By Margaret Clough straight, once and for all. the Krugers in Gauteng?The circula- Lucinda Kruger tion department is slipping again. from The Last to Leave, Modjaji Books Lucinda Kruger Attorneys, What better proof that the story did Benoni him/her no damage. – Ed. NOSEWEEK November 2015 5 C Editorial Editor Martin Welz [email protected] Contributing Editor Donwald Pressly Fighting talk Special Correspondent Jack Lundin Designer Tony Pinchuck S I DO FROM TIME TO TIME, I RECENTLY lions more – fully exploiting the Supreme Consultant went online to catch up on what Court’s Citizens United abominable judg- Len Ashton gives at Public Citizen, the Wash- ment – backing political candidates who Sub-editor ington-based consumer-rights advo- would do their bidding. And they haven’t Fiona Harrison cacy group established by Ralph Na- gone a single day without whining about Contributors derA in 1971. It is currently headed by Robert commonsense safeguards intended to keep Len Ashton, Elisabeth Hamilton, Weissman, a star Harvard Law School gradu- their clearly dangerous greed in check.