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Bidvest boss to NOVEMBER sue Vodacom over fees scam 2017 00217 104042 771025 9

Makhosi Khoza sinks The men behind her claws into Zuma’s ANC Cape lawyer a liar the world’s biggest and a cheat get-even-richer plan GB NoseWeek MCC Ad_02.indd 1 2016/12/12 2:03 PM South AfricanYour favourite magazine is now ISSUE 217 fishing• NOVEMBER 2017 fliesavailable on your iPad – an anthology of milestone andpatterns PC

A fly-fisher’s fishy tales Page 26 4 Letters peter brigg and ed herbst 6 Editorial 31 Smalls 7 KZN Bar brawl spreads the dirt Court hears claims of extra-marital affairs, AVAILABLE swearing, drunkeness – and pettiness ON YOUR COLUMNS 8 JSE investigators assess Bonamour’s frolic Which way will Tiso Blackstar chairman TABLET 26 Books David Adomakoh and the Concert Party jump? 27 Letter from 11 Fog of jaw over KZN land claim Umjindi No end in sight for 103-year-old labour tenant’s Download your application for transfer of title deeds 28 Not rocket digital edition today science 12 The biggest ever get-rich-quick plan Why the rich everywhere are getting richer and both single issues and 29 Down & Out the number of poor grows exponentially subscriptions available

30 Last Word 15 Car-hire exec to sue Vodacom Fed-up risk manager plans class action against PLUS never miss a copy – cellphone provider over fraudulent charges with back issues available to download and store 16 KPMG whitewash report The one they hoped we’d forgotten DOWNLOAD YOUR DIGITAL 18 Fishy business EDITION AT Judge finds Cape attorney and property developer, www.noseweek.co.za Richard Goudvis, to be a dodgy witness and a liar or % 021 686 0570 20 Standing up and fighting Magda Wierzycka made headlines when her private sector company was the first to fire auditors KPMG

NOSEWEEK November 2017 3 Letters

Cover bouquet of the city’s external auditors, they informed me they did not carry out an From the letters page, in nose20, OH, SHIT! – I DO LIKE YOUR OCTOBER December 1997: magazine cover! independent audit; they just checked Andre Hanekom that the internal auditors were happy Wrath of Muhammad Kenilworth, Cape Town and had signed off the accounts. Gary Smith WE NEED NOT DESPAIR BECAUSE OF Cape Farms, Rondeberg, Western Cape Texans’ decision to maintain KPMG’s diplomatic auditing sanctions against South Africa! n YOUR KPMG REPORT MAKES ONE By God, The Prophets and CNN, KPMG’S “DIPLOMATIC” AUDITING GOES wonder about professional status. El Nino is going to flood Texas by way back. In the late 1980s I was No sooner have the accountants New Year’s Day, and I will rejoice employed by the Durban City been sprung, along comes the South in the justice of the Laws of God Council’s IT department to convert African Reserve Bank to the rescue: and physics. the programming of the city’s comput- KPMG are too big to fail – the large Muhammad Jadwat erised assets register from Mumps to corporate organisations must not La Mercy Beach, KZN Cobol, a project that took nearly three ditch their Dutch Uncles. years. There were so many assets on “When plunder becomes a way of Mr Jadwat’s prophecy was only the register that the printout pile life for a group of men in society, in 20 years out, but the residents of stood more than a metre high. As the course of time they create a legal Houston may need reminding why a result no-one ever read it or knew system that authorises it and a moral the recent devastating hurricane what was in it; all the auditors wanted code that glorifies it.” – Economic was visited upon them. – Ed. was the total. Sophisms, Frederic Bastiat (1801- Durban at the time claimed a world 1850). a month’s supply plus two repeats. record; it and some city in Canada What does the Reserve Bank know Since “bennies” are both easily were the only cities that made a and what are they attempting to abused and highly addictive, I was profit every year. Question frequently brush under the carpet? Perhaps careful to make the month’s supply asked: why, if they are always making another quotation might help: last for nearly a year. By then the a profit, do rates continually rise? “The few who understand the repeat prescriptions were out-of-date One way they were doing it was system will either be so interested so I went back to ask, somewhat by reflecting every expense incurred in its profits or so dependent on its sheepishly, for a further supply and not as an expense in their books, favours, that there will be no opposi- in a burst of generosity my dealer but as the purchase of an asset. For tion from that class.” And “Let me – sorry, my doctor – upped the dose example, installed street light bulbs issue and control a nation’s money and gave me another three months’ were reflected as an asset; paint used and I care not who writes the laws.” supply. I mentioned that the product on the roads – those white lines – was – Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild, leaflet advised a maximum treatment an asset. Donkeys they had bought in (1744-1812). period of two weeks but he said I was 1938 were still on the asset register, Does history not teach us anything? mistaken. I’m a pretty big guy (of as were ancient tramlines long buried Barry Midgley Russian descent); I wonder if smaller under layers of tarmac, still valued at Durban folk are more at risk than me. cost. Contractors had been hired and paid to dig holes on Dairy Beach for PS: This is not cricket! Where is ‘Bear’ Lee Konshus poles to support a new lifesavers’ hut Harold Strachan? I don’t recall Southern Cape close to the new pier. But they could receiving a leave application – his not reach rock, so decided to erect is the most important article in n TO ADD TO YOUR EXCELLENT ARTICLE the hut on North Beach instead. The Noseweek; without it we get with- titled “Big Pharma is making us sick” abandoned holes in the sand on Dairy drawal symptoms. – BM (nose216) two notable quotes: Beach remained on the asset register, “It is simply no longer possible to at cost. Under the site where the See page 12 to understand the system believe much of the clinical research Tollgate bridge now stands on the N3 – and then page 30 to light up your that is published, or to rely on the highway, there was once a road inter- day! – Ed. judgment of trusted physicians or section with robots. Those old road- authoritative medical guidelines. I works and traffic lights were still on Have a bennie! take no pleasure in this conclusion, the asset register, although they had which I reached slowly and reluc- YOUR ARTICLE (BIG PHARMA, NOSE216) been bulldozed away years before. tantly over my two decades as an about the over-prescription of drugs The council auditors weren’t inter- editor of The New England Journal was spot-on, if our local GPs are ested; they only wanted the total of Medicine.” – Marcia Angell, MD, anything to go by. I was prescribed that the computer spewed out. When in the New York Review of Books, benzodiazepine a couple of years ago; I drew the problem to the attention January 15, 2009.

4 “The case against science is straight- and SARS will have to catch a BIG everyone to go the small claims court forward: much of the scientific litera- wake-up because Nam is busy taking route. If enough people do, Vodacom ture, perhaps half, may simply be business away from inefficient, and friends will have to shut down untrue. Afflicted by studies with small bloated, red-tape and expensive SA these scams, because it will cost them sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid government-run Ports Authority too much to defend. exploratory analyses, and flagrant operations! Ian Ashmole conflicts of interest, together with an Rick Lobb Posted online obsession with pursuing fashionable Sunridge Park trends of dubious importance, science No miracle cures has taken a turn towards darkness.” – Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Time Vodacom got stung THERE ARE NO LONGER ETHICS IN BUSI- Lancet, April 2015. NESS, only the desire to be rich at all IF YOU ARE A VICTIM OF VODACOM’S WASP And who can argue with that! costs; even if it means that innocent scam [charges to your cellphone people will die. When it comes to Dr David Klatzow, account for junk “content” you neither Forensic scientist, Cape Town our health, we really have to apply ordered not authorised] and assuming common sense: drink water, eat in that the amount is less than R15,000, moderation, rest, but most impor- Well done, neighbour! lodge a claim against Vodacom at the tantly avoid miracle cures as they WELL DONE TO NAMIBIA; THINKING small claims court. Since the police simply do not exist. outside the proverbial box is the and NPA have done nothing about it KG way to go! SA Ports, SA Customs for years, Noseweek should encourage Pretoria Stent

NOSEWEEK November 2017 5 C

Editor Editorial Martin Welz [email protected] Assistant Editor Jonathan Erasmus unDONE Special Correspondent Jack Lundin HIS MONTH, ALL I NEED DO IS RECOMMEND 4% for two months and keep the remaining Designer that you read a recently published 16%? Charity for millionaires? Tony Pinchuck book by Jacques Peretti titled Done, Did any of them pause to consider they Consultant published by Hodder. You can start were lining up to make easy billions out of Len Ashton with the extract from the book on South Africa’s need for anti-retrovirals to page 12. But for local perspective, keep the deal with the AIDS crisis? How do we face Sub-editor T following in mind: a recession with that low level of business Chas Unwin l Jonathan Taplin, New York Times, 22 acumen and/or morality at the top? Contributors April 2017: “Facebook, Google and Amazon l In March, AmaBhungane investigator Len Ashton, Sibusiso Biyela, Bheki Mashile, have stymied innovation on a broad scale. Craig McKune revealed that: “The US-listed Sue Segar, Anne Susskind, Harold Strachan They have become the point of access to firm Net1 uses its subsidiary Cash Paymaster Cartoonists all media for the majority of Americans Services’ (CPS) social grant distribution Stacey Stent, Dr Jack [and South Africans]. Profits have soared contract as a secret back door to harvest grant Accounts while revenues in newspaper publishing recipients’ information. This is forbidden. Nicci van Doesburgh have, since 2001, fallen by 70%. Billions of Then Net 1 uses the information to make [email protected] dollars have been re-allocated from creators billions selling micro-loans [at outrageous interest rates], insurance, airtime and other Subscriptions of content to owners of monopoly platforms. Maud August Content creators dependent on advertising low-end financial products to beneficiaries.” [email protected] must negotiate with Google or Facebook.” “The Sassa contract forbade CPS and its l In nose116 (June 2009) we reported that subcontractors from using the beneficiaries’ Advertising Johannesburg businessman Christopher information for anything but paying grants. 021 686 0570 Leppan had applied to court to have ponzi- But other companies in the Net1 group are [email protected] operator Barry Tannenbaum declared insol- using the beneficiary data to seduce them vent. Leppan had invested in what was into signing up for bank cards which allow All material in this issue is copyright, and belongs to Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd, unless otherwise supposed to be a hugely profitable scheme Net1-associated businesses to extract deduc- indicated. No part of the material may be quoted, to finance the importation of raw materials tions for loans, electricity, airtime and insur- photocopied, reproduced or be stored by any required for the manufacture of anti-retro- ance, etc, trapping South Africa’s poorest in electronic system without prior written permission. viral drugs needed by the country’s millions a cycle of debt. Net1 is responsible for most Disclaimer: While every reasonable effort is taken to ensure the accuracy and soundness of the contents of of indigent AIDS-sufferers. Leppan was of the R550m that comes off beneficiaries’ this publication, neither the authors nor the publisher promised a 20% return on his money every bank accounts every month, court papers will bear any responsibility for the consequences of 12 weeks. That’s more than 80% per year. show,” McKune reported. any actions based on information contained. Printed But when the time came to collect, l In late September DA shadow minister and Published by Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd. Tannenbaum’s cheque bounced, his bank of social development Bridget Masango account had been closed and Tannenbaum made an inspection visit to the Eastern had emigrated to Australia. South Africa’s Cape. In Tsolo, social security agency latest and largest-ever ponzi scheme had workers reported that illegal deductions collapsed. Who else had rushed to invest in from social grants are ongoing. The elderly this fabulous money-making scheme? sometimes get as little as R70 from a foster Finding the old stockbroking Lowenthals, care grant of R920. Some old age grant father and son, in there with the best of the recipients received R850 not R1,610. SUBSCRIPTION RATES cowboys came as no surprise. But ex Pick In Butterworth she visited banks, ATMs Print n Pay CEO Sean Summers for R50m and and the Net1 Financial Services office. She ex OK Bazaars CEO Mervyn Serebro for noted that the queue at the Net1 Financial SA only R410 R40m?! What were they, and John Storey of Services office providing EasyPay green Neighbouring states (airmail) R600 Cobalt Capital, Nic Pagden ex City Group cards and loans, was much longer than those Europe, Americas and Australasia R740 (a rumoured R40m), Bruce MacDonald at Sassa and bank ATMs. Internet edition “Green” cards – issued by Net1 associate 1 year R298 of Zenprop (said to be in for R50m), Tim Hacker and Johnny Rosenberg, doing there? Grindrod Bank – allow these deductions. Combined All claimed to have consulted experts and Most recipients did not know they can Print+Internet (SA only) R510 auditors who assured them all was well. refuse green cards in favour of the white To subscribe How come these smart businessmen, with Sassa cards that don’t. Late at night at the By phone (021) 686 0570 their lawyers and accountants, never got local hospital grant recipients were waiting Online (pay by credit card): around to asking themselves: if Tannenbaum for midnight to withdraw their money before www.noseweek.co.za can offer 20% for a ten-week investment the illegal deductions could take place. Email [email protected] – secured by advance orders from generic “The poor and needy are being pushed drug manufacturer, Aspen – why wouldn’t deeper into poverty and hopelessness,” (Note: cheques no longer accepted) he take the same contracts to his bankers, Masango said in a statement. RMB and Investec, borrow the money at The Editor Further information Call (021) 686 0570; fax 021 686 0573 or email [email protected] Notes & Updates KZN Bar brawl spreads the dirt

N A RECENT JUDGMENT SUSPENDING to prove that Chetty was a regular KwaZulu-Natal Advocate Penny drunkard and that the Bar, in disci- Hunt for six months, for spying plining her husband for knocking out on her colleagues, the same judge- Chetty, should take this into account. ment rebuked the KwaZulu-Natal But then Hunt’s surveillance plot BarI of Advocates for embarking on was reported by her former secretary, a dirty tricks campaign to destroy to Adrian Rall SC, chairman at the Hunt’s credibility. time of the Pietermaritzburg Bar. The strike-off application was PI Impey admitted to having brought by the KZN Bar and heard installed the listening and tracking in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. devices, but on Hunt’s instruction. In a trial spanning 20 days over 18 The question the strike-out judges months, many of the salacious details needed to answer was whether Impey that spilled into the open in court, was lying, as Hunt maintained. She emanated from the Pietermaritzburg claimed she had merely employed Bar. They included accounts of extra- Impey to “sweep” her office, and had marital affairs, swearing, drunken- asked for Chetty to be followed to help ness, backstabbing and a childish clear her husband’s name. dispute over how many cups of tea the “lmpey had no cause to install a tea-lady was allowed to make for each listening device off his own bat. The staff member (See nose210). same goes for the tracking device on Hunt is currently seeking the Chetty’s car. provincial judge president’s leave to “[Penny Hunt’s] actions show a appeal her six-month suspension, lack of judgment. The standard of while the Bar has launched a cross- her behaviour fell short of what is application to have Hunt’s suspension expected from an advocate [but] the made permanent. conduct of the respondent does not The judgment recounts that on 11 show a flaw in her character [suffi- June 2010, at a farewell party for cient to] justify striking off,” read the Judge Rob Griffiths, who had just been judgment. elevated to the bench, Hunt spilled a It said the “hostility of the Bar drink on the head of a drunken fellow Council” to Hunt was evident when advocate, Mergen Chetty. Chetty they accused her in public of theft claimed Hunt had deliberately poured of the Bar’s CCTV hard-drive, when it on his head. They had words, until “there was no substance in such Hunt’s husband, Cameron Hunt SC, a charge”. former amateur boxer and a regular “The publicity resulted in serious IF YOU RENT PROPERTY for representing the South African and lasting damage to the respond- Revenue Service, stepped in and “hit ent’s [Penny Hunt’s] reputation KEEP THIS NUMBER Chetty twice with a fist”, who “fell to and practice. The conduct of the the floor and only regained conscious- Pietermaritzburg Bar Council must I CAN HELP YOU WITH ness after a few minutes”. be frowned upon by this court, because PROBLEM TENANTS With a couple of loose teeth and a not only did it damage its own image, bruised ego, Chetty now wanted to sue it also caused the evidence presented I CAN ASSIST YOU WITH THE Hunt SC. His wife Penny, rallying to at this hearing to be muddied with RENTAL HOUSING TRIBUNAL her husband’s defence, hired private irrelevant issues.” investigator Houston Impey to place a However, it added that “it is beyond IF YOU DON’T NEED ME NOW, tracker on Chetty’s car and a listening question” that Cameron Hunt SC “did YOU WILL LATER device in the Bar adminstrator’s office not act in the manner expected from a “to get some dirt on him”. She wanted member of the Bar”. n JOHN: 082 901 0824

NOSEWEEK November 2017 7 JSE investigators assess Bonamour’s ofshore frolic Which way will Tiso Blackstar chairman David Adomakoh and the Concert Party jump? By Jack Lundin

HE INVESTIGATIONS UNIT AT THE Economic Empowerment investment on the Alternative Investment Market Johannesburg Stock Exchange opportunities in South Africa. (AIM) in recent years, is apparently has been assessing Noseweek’s “The role between the parties is inured to such practices. In any event, revelations (nose216) that an strictly one of independent contractor regulation of the junior market at the unconventional offshore money- and client,” independent director David LSE has always been kept deliberately spinnerT enriched media giant Tiso Brock assured the LSE regulators, as “flexible” – for which read ‘minimal’. Blackstar’s chief executive Andrew well as potential investors. John Thain, while chairman of the Bonamour and his asset-stripping Little did they know that Bonamour, New York Stock Exchange, famously mentor Julian Treger by up to R295m. along with London-based Julian told the World Economic Forum in The London Stock Exchange has Treger, a 54-year-old Old Davidonian Davos the year after Blackstar’s listing launched its own investigation. – former pupil of King David High that AIM “does not have any standards Our story told how, for more than School, Linksfield – had planned at all and anyone can list”. To which three years, Bonamour used his British the formation of Blackstar Investors AIM’s head man, Martin Graham, hit Virgin Islands-registered company, Plc months earlier in Johannesburg. back: “AIM is a risk-capital market. Blackstar Managers, to identify Black They’d also planned the establish- Investors have to take responsibility Economic Empowerment investment ment in the British Virgin Islands of for their decisions.” opportunities in South Africa, and an unconnected (and misleadingly As Noseweek went to press AIM’s billed his own newly-listed Blackstar named) company, Blackstar Managers, regulation unit tells us it is looking Investors Plc for millions in perfor- which would deliver to them handsome into Bonamour’s alleged profiteering mance and advisory fees. rewards in the name of Black Economic from his offshore Blackstar Managers. Newly-consecrated media baron Empowerment. (At Blackstar these In Johannesburg, Tiso Blackstar Bonamour, 46-year-old chief executive days the BEE acronym stands for kicked off with a secondary listing on of the dual-listed Tiso Blackstar Group, Bonamour’s Economic Empowerment). the JSE’s AltX market. In July, with which owns a bundle of titles including As previously recounted, on the much trumpeting, the group was Sunday Times, Business Day and strength of David Brock’s misleading elevated to the main board. Nadia Jada, the Financial Mail, claims to be the assurances major institutional inves- head of the JSE’s investigations unit, founder of Blackstar – and takes credit tors, including the likes of Kleinwort tells Noseweek: “We shall assess this for raising its billion rand start-up Benson, Bear Stearns and Merrill matter and revert as soon as possible.” capital on the Alternative Investment Lynch stumped up £80m – a billion Her colleague Andrew Visser, general Market of the London Stock Exchange. rands – to provide investment funding manager, issuer regulation, adds: “The Yet when the embryo Blackstar for the newly-listed Plc. JSE’s powers don’t extend to events sought admission to the LSE’s junior Founders of listed companies don’t or arrangements which existed prior market in 2006, the admission docu- normally set up offshore enterprises to the company applying for a listing ment described him as a mere to strip out chunks of the profits that on the exchange. However, we shall contracted service provider. As revealed would have been welcome on their own review the information contained in in nose216, Bonamour was introduced bottom line. Would Blackstar’s original the Noseweek article against the provi- as someone with “extensive experi- funders have been so quick to pump a sions of the listings requirements and ence in the financial services industry”, billion rands into the new Plc had they engage with the company if necessary.” who had established a newly-formed known the true background? That was Bonamour’s offshore caper was termi- management company registered in the Noseweek’s story last month. So what nated by his own Blackstar group board British Virgin Islands. Conditional on do the regulators make of it now? in 2009 – the belated “internalisation” admission, the new Plc planned to enter The London Stock Exchange, which of Blackstar Managers involved the into a service agreement with him on an has suffered a flood of Chinese and pay-out of more multi-millions to our annual salary of £15,000 to source Black Russian businesses seeking a listing local hero. And since it was not until

8 Blackstar annual accounts and report in September, Bonamour came out with his usual flow of Ebitda-isms: Consolidated Ebitda increased by 30% to R467.6m… Strong performance from media segment with Ebitda growth of 25.8% to R131.2m...TV and radio Ebitda up by over 60%. Most of which was quoted by Business Day (owner Tiso Blackstar) under the head- line “Tiso Blackstar on growth track”. If you prefer it straight: total debt at Tiso Blackstar stands at R1.386bn; short term borrowings total R886.8m, of which bank overdrafts are R94.2m; Andrew Bonamour (left) and David Adomakoh liabilities are R1.75bn (despite a ruth- less mauling of pensioners’ medical 2011 that the Blackstar group listed in Its supposedly secret members can, aid benefits – see nose215 – that in Joburg, it looks as though Bonamour however, be fairly easily identified as four years has reduced that irritating is in the clear there. In any event, the Tiso Investments Holdings (TIH) and liability from R274m to R61.9m). maverick asset-stripper has created a Tiso Foundation Charitable Trust. Group loss after tax; R15.4m. fresh income stream to top up his remu- Now that Blackstar has disposed of its In case you’re not familiar with neration package at Tiso Blackstar: the 22.9% stake in Kagiso Tiso Holdings Ebitda, the metric was designed to Management Incentive Scheme. (KagisoTH), will David Adomakoh, give a short-term snapshot of a busi- Bonamour has always ensured that a KagisoTH director and co-founder ness’s raw earnings potential, free he sits on Blackstar’s remuneration and chairman of associated Tiso of encumbrances like debt cost, tax committee and in the early years scored Investment Holdings (TIH), remain burden, depreciation and amortisation. himself straight bonuses: £471,000 on the Blackstar board – currently as Ebitda is almost always used to justify (R5.3m) in 2010, £353,000 (R4.1m) in group chairman – or depart and dump undeserved premium valuations. 2011, R3.3m in 2012. Then he came the Concert Party’s shareholding? Investment bankers – and asset-strip- up with the Management Incentive Certainly, when Tiso reversed into pers – use Ebitda to answer the ques- Scheme, an annual award paid half Blackstar three years ago, many tion: how much debt can we put on this in cash, half in Blackstar shares, pondered how the erudite and thor- company after we acquire it? for those adjudged to merit it. Since oughly respectable Adomakoh – Billionaire investment guru Warren 2013 Bonamour’s taken awards total former London banker, head of Chase Buffett believes that “trumpeting R37.3m. With previous bonuses that’s Manhattan Bank in Southern Africa, Ebitda is a particularly pernicious an extra R50m in cash and shares from and educated at the London School of practice. The fraudsters are trying to debt-stricken Blackstar. To which must Economics and the Sorbonne – would con you or they’re trying to con them- be added the 443,468 shares (value hit it off with a brash bottom line selves. We’ll never buy a company R4m) he dished out to himself in June, bandit like Andrew Bonamour. when the managers talk about Ebitda”. bringing his holding in Blackstar’s Does Adomakoh, for example, Charlie Munger, Buffett’s long- stock to 3.4% – value R83m. approve of the CEO’s obsession with time business partner at Berkshire Just what Tiso Blackstar’s share- Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, Hathaway, the US multinational holders make of their CEO’s self- depreciation and amortisation)? In conglomerate that’s number two on gratifying largesse at a time when the his presentation of the latest Tiso this year’s Fortune 500 list, has opined: group’s bank overdrafts are running “Every time you see the word Ebitda you at R94.2m, one can only imagine. The should substitute ‘bullshit earnings’.” Public Investment Corp, entrusted Don’t expect to read that in Tiso with the management of R1.857 tril- Asked to comment Blackstar’s Business Day or Financial lion of public funds, holds 10.3% of Mail, these days ensconced together in Blackstar’s shares but declines to on Bonamour’s a cost-saving “multidisciplined” news- discuss the investment. Head of corpo- room in Parktown. Despite having their rate affairs Deon Botha ignores a offshore antics, own editors, both organs fall under the request for a view, but for now the PIC eagle eye of the former editor of both, is holding on to the public’s 27,716,143 Blackstar’s editor-at-large Peter Bruce, Blackstar shares, worth some R250m. AIM’s investigations an ardent admirer of the Great Asset- But what does the Concert Party Stripper. When motorbike enthusiast say? A mysterious entity, referred to unit doesn’t bother Bonamour began commuting to work in company documents only as “the on his Triumph café racer, Bruce was Concert Party” holds an all-important to respond quick to follow suit, wobbling in on a 34.57% of Blackstar’s issued shares. Honda NC750X. n

NOSEWEEK November 2017 9 Spouses on the scrapheap

EDICAL AID BENEFITS FOR reduced to R87m. For further saving, spouses of media pensioners he froze the subsidy at its 2013 level. at Tiso Blackstar Group will According to Tiso Blackstar’s provi- be eliminated from next sional annual results to June 2017, the Old hands January, chief executive liability is now down to R61.9m. The AndrewM Bonamour has ordered. The new policy will ensure that it continues shock development has enraged retired to tumble as old hacks die off and their enter the journalists at Blackstar publications, spouses are left with nothing. which include Sunday Times, Business As reported (noses189,191,215,216), Day, Sowetan and Financial Mail. a group of 51 pensioners went to court fray on And that’s not all. At present, when seeking resumption of annual subsidy pensioners die their spouses take over increases. On the eve of trial a media- as principal members, and continue tion resulted in the 51 receiving once- Facebook to receive the company’s medical aid off settlements in June ranging from subsidy. But under Bonamour’s new R96,000 to R384,000, 14 of them Peter Wilhelm We are both old and policy, after January 1 surviving part- exceeding R300,000. The payouts not exactly well. Now the spouses are ners and any other dependants will lose totalled R13.1m – and Bonamour to be be excluded (unless I die quickly the subsidy and be scrubbed from the insisted on a confidentiality agreement. and my wife becomes the principal in books. The 300-or-so pensioners now hit At present, principal members by Bonamour’s new policy are kicking time). The amounts paid are subject on 100% benefits receive a monthly themselves for not joining in the liti- to continual revision “at the compa- subsidy, frozen since 2014, of R1,893. gation. Some say they were not aware ny’s discretion”. And prospective Spouses get an additional R1,324 – to of the action; others didn’t want to get members of Tiso Blackstar as media be axed from January. Medical cover for involved in a court battle, leaving it people are duly warned ... And who both at Discovery Health typically costs to the 51 on the assumption that they really can afford to be a journalist R9,000 per month or R100,000 plus per would receive any benefits from it now? year, both due to increase by around 8% anyway. They failed to take into account in 2018. the nature of their adversary, Andrew On top of this, still-serving hacks Bonamour. Jenny McMahon Same as all opting for early retirement – including Bonamour now justifies the axing the thieves in government at the those who leave on grounds of ill health of spouses’ benefits on declining tradi- moment. And same all over the world. or as an alternative to retrenchment – tional media advertising and circula- Money money money mad. will have the (frozen) subsidy reduced tion revenues, while print, distribution by 2.5% for each year that they leave and employment costs continue to rise Eddie Botha I feel for those who before the prescribed retirement age. with inflation. “The traditional print The new policy was communicated by media businesses face a threat to their have dependents. As for me, I am just Bonamour to some 300-plus pensioners very existence,” he tells the oldtimers. thankful that they – Tiso Blackstar – on October 9. Under the previous owner- This gloomy picture clashes with the will contribute for the time being. ship of Times Media Group, pensioners segmental review in Blackstar’s latest traditionally received a subsidy for annuals, which report a “strong media Patricia Sidley Bonamour is the life towards their medical aid cover, a performance” generating revenue of creature who is doing this. Might I subsidy which increased annually to R2bn for the year, “in the face of diffi- suggest a group of you find a public keep pace with ever-mounting medical cult trading conditions growing Ebitda scheme fees. When Blackstar took (earnings) by 25.8% to R131.2m”. interest law group and get another effective control of the group in 2012, And though pensioners’ spouses class action law suit underway. This 688 members received the medical must now suffer to help relieve the guy is a mean thug. You all need to aid subsidy – 383 of them pensioners, group’s R1.386bn debt burden, in fight for your contractual rights. 305 still working. The post-retirement June Bonamour still felt able to award subsidy liability, R67m back in 2000, himself 443,468 more Blackstar shares, Leon de Kock It would appear there’s had by then rocketed to R274m. worth R4m, in his Management a certain desperation about margins Reducing this liability has been a Incentive Scheme, bringing the value of priority for Andrew Bonamour. A once- his now 3.4% stake in Tiso Blackstar to in this newspaper group. It has never off cash offer in 2013 was taken up by R83m. been a compassionate company, 67% of in-service workers, but only 8% News of the spouses’ treatment not in any of its manifestations: TML, of pensioners. However, by the end of has provoked uproar on social media. Johnnic, Avusa, now TB - I know, I’ve 2013 Bonamour was able to announce (See Investigators assess Bonamour’s worked for every one of them. that the subsidy liability had been offshore frolic, page 8.)

10 Fog of jaw over KZN land claim

OR 103-YEAR-OLD PIETERMARITZBURG Noseweek that Shockproof, through the article in Noseweek that she real- labour tenant Zabalaza Mshengu, attorneys Schoerie & Sewgoolam ised that not only had the matter not the road to getting title deeds Inc. has appointed Durban-based been concluded, but the plight of the to the land he has occupied his Ian Wyles Auctioneers & Appraisers other two families on the farm had not entire life has no end in sight. to value the land. It has no services been addressed. FHe has been waiting for his land and there are just four simple dwell- While the housing development has to be transferred to his name for 16 ings, occupied by Mshengu, his two not taken off, she said she has been in years, but a series of delays, most of sons, and their livestock. Its market contact with the department in a bid them unexplained, haved dogged the value has been placed at R1.3m, to finalise this matter. process. significantly up from the R950,000 it “The delays can only lead a person However, it would seem articles in was valued at in 2014. In September to believe there are people within the Noseweek may have spurred some of 2016 the state offered R221,460 but department with their own agendas,” those responsible for the delays into Shockproof wanted “about R500,000”. she told Noseweek. (slow) action. The director-general of Deadlock set in and the deal stalled. Department spokesman Sbonelo the Department of Rural Development Shockproof directors are Dr Nomsa Hlongwane said “no specific date” has and Land Affairs in KZN, Jomo Ntuli, Dlamini and Roshan Morar. They been set for when Mshengu should is finally taking a personal interest in are both extraordinarily politically take transfer but they’ve instructed the matter. Whether that will make a connected (see nose213). his attorney to “assist him with a will difference is yet to be seen. When contacted by Noseweek, and to nominate a person who will Mshengu lodged his claim for the Dlamini said the delay in finalising carry on with his claim in any eventu- five hectare piece of land before 31 the matter was “a tragedy”. She said ality”. He said once the land is trans- March 2001 – the cut-off date in line she does not live on the land that she ferred Mshengu will have no condi- with the Land Reform (Land Tenants) and her business partner bought to tions placed on his ownership. Act. Only 22,000 such claims were develop an upmarket housing estate. “As a labour tenant he qualifies for lodged countrywide. A labour tenant “When we bought the farm the the land in full title.” is a farm worker who exchanged his previous owner told us about the land Hlongwane dismissed the notion labour on a commercial farm for the tenant claim. We accepted it. In 2012 that either political pressure or right to farm a portion of land for we signed the necessary paperwork bureaucratic lethargy were delaying himself. with the department for the transfer the sale, adding that a “final” valua- Mshengu was born on the land on of land to be completed to the labour tion will be done by the office of the 11 January 1914. Until 2006 the tenants. We were under the impres- valuer-general once agreement has farm had been owned by at least two sion there were three families and been reached on the size of the land. generations of the Hardman family. we had committed to giving them five Hlongwane said they have instructed However the department (which must hectares each while only charging the Mzila, who they are paying on behalf pay for Mshengu’s piece of land), and state for a total of six hectares,” said of Mshengu, to also assist another the new farm owner, a black-directed Dlamini. two families on the farm with labour company, Shockproof Investments 71 She said it was only after she saw tenancy rights. n Pty Ltd, have yet to finalise the sale. In May 2011, Mshengu, with the help of the Pietermaritzburg-based Association for Rural Advancement, dragged the department to the land claims court in an attempt to hurry the process along. An order was made by Acting Judge C Sardiwalla to do just that, but to no avail. In May 2016 Mshengu brought a new application to the local high court. On 31 July (nose215) the Pietermaritzburg High Court ordered Shockproof Investments 71 and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to have the land valued within 60 days. This has been done, but once again “I can’t afford to retire.” there is no clear path ahead. Mshengu’s lawyer, Muzi Mzila, told

NOSEWEEK November 2017 11 The biggest ever get-rich-quick plan

Lucy Mangan, in the UK Guardian, describes Jacques Peretti’s book Done, and the BBC documentary series that accompanied it, as ‘So brilliant you want to take notes’. Peretti explains the human ‘global warming’ the world is experiencing; why in recent years the rich everywhere – and excruciatingly so in South Africa – have been getting vastly richer, while the number of poor grows exponentially and the middle class drowns in debt on its way to extinction. The real surprise: it’s all part of a perfectly logical plan – the biggest get-rich-quick scam or ‘proft opportunity’ the world has ever known. Peretti is no conspiracist. A graduate of the London School of Economics, and an investigative journalist and documentary flm maker of note, the research is meticulous and his writing often gripping. It’s a book Noseweek readers will want to read.

AKE A BUGGY THAT CAN TAKE EIGHT Extract from ‘Done’ by people. Then put the eight wealthiest people on earth in JACQUES PERETTI that buggy: Carlos Slim (worth $50bn), Bill Gates ($75bn), TAmancio Ortega ($67bn), Warren and did something mind-blowing: Buffet ($60.8bn), Jeff Bezos ($45.2bn), they decided to treat coming global Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6bn), Larry inequality as a business opportunity to Ellison ($43.6bn) and, in the bucket be exploited, and widened. This seismic seat, Michael Bloomberg (a mere widening problem was a gift-horse like $40bn). With a combined worth of no other. $426bn, these eight people now own as much money as 3.7 billion people, The hourglass who also happen to be the poorest fifty OBIAS LEVKOVICH IS A VERY SMART man. percent of the earth’s population. He meets me in his vast office over- This polarization of global wealth Tlooking the Hudson River on the – human global warming – is as 49th floor of the world’s fourth-largest threatening as the meteorological bank, Citigroup. He tells me about a variety. Should we care? Absolute book he loves: Leviathan by Thomas global economy is moving and advising global poverty is reducing and, as the Hobbes – a political treatise based on Citigroup and Wall Street to invest tril- Institute of Economic Affairs argues, the premise that human beings will do lions of dollars in whatever he thinks is the widening gap is the price you pay whatever they can get away with. going to happen next. for the planet as a whole getting richer. In 2006 Tobias held in his pocket He dropped his bombshell in 2006 in Whether you think it matters or not, a photograph of the future that, if the very boardroom where I meet him, widening inequality is happening and, he chose to share it with his clients, before a sea of stony-faced men and to paraphrase Arnold Schwarzenegger, was going to make them a very large women in business suits, representing it doesn’t care a damn whether you amount of money. Tobias is one of the the biggest companies on earth. Tobias believe in it or not. most important bankers on earth: predicted – to the incredulity of his In March 2006 a group of analysts at he is responsible for identifying the colleagues – that by 2015, the one Citigroup saw the whole thing coming plate-tectonic shifts in the way the hundred richest people would own the

12 The world’s eight richest people

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

1. Carlos Slim ($50 billion); 2. Bill Gates ($75 billion); 3. Amancio Ortega ($67 billion); 4. Warren Buffet ($60.8 billion); 5. Jeff Bezos ($45.2 billion); 6. Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6 billion); 7. Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion); 8. Michael Bloomberg ($40 billion)

same as half the world’s population. (It ness criteria. I have to deliver results zero-hour contracts, high-interest is actually just eight people: the guys or they’re going to take their money credit. [Noseweek readers might want sitting in the golf buggy.) and give it to someone else. It’s not to have another look at the big boys “The coming decade will be marked cynical. It’s practical. That is our job. behind Net1, Blue Label, and CellC’s by polarisation and social unrest,” We are supposed to make them money.” plans to profit from their dominance of Tobias said, “a direct consequence of Every country will, over time, he South Africa’s social grants market and growing economic inequality.” The said, come to look like an hourglass: access to low-income population data. – clients coughed and looked down at At the top, the super-rich global elite, Ed.] As stress increases for the poor, their notepads. “Many will be worried to whom you will be able to sell Lear gambling and alcohol will once again by this. We at the bank worry less.” Jets and Bentleys; at the bottom, the become boom industries. Pound shops Worry less? global poor, to whom there will be and discounting will become huge, as “You can’t sit there and say this unimaginable new opportunities to people fail to make ends meet. doesn’t meet everyone’s social happi- sell poverty products: payday loans, I was intrigued by the hourglass:

NOSEWEEK November 2017 13 What was the deal with the tapered bit the room diversified their portfolios shared rules to the edge, which is when in the middle? “Oh, that’s the middle exactly as Citigroup advised, focusing society begins to break down. So, what class. They will be squeezed out of on businesses at both ends of the hour- can be done? Piketty shrugged his existence. They will cease to have any glass: high-end luxury for the rich and shoulders. purchasing power, and thus be over as poverty products for the poor. an investment opportunity,” Tobias told Tobias’s prediction came true faster NEQUALITY IS HERE TO STAY AND WE NOW me cheerily. than anyone could have dreamt. live daily and acceptingly with its In fact the middle class would sink Iextremes. In London, it is possible to into the lower globe of the hourglass, The Hunger Games for real get a facial in a Knightsbridge beauty but continue to live for a time beyond HE PEOPLE ON MY GOLF BUGGY ALL salon with a throwaway liquid gold their means, desperately clinging onto think inequality is terrible. They mask and a caviar massage. A top-of- the tropes of being middle class (such Tsay so all the time, as do the heads the-hourglass product. Treatments as foreign holidays or a new car). of the IMF, the World Bank, the Bank cost up to £30,000. Some clients come Delusions of status. of England, the Fed and every other three or four times a month. The staff In Tobias’s long-term view, the financial institution that spent the who apply the gold mask and caviar bottom orb of the hourglass would last twenty years putting in place the massage are sometimes on, or just come to represent one giant new global mechanisms that allowed inequality to above, the minimum wage. If they need class: what we now know as the ninety- open up – like a chasm. a payday loan to make ends meet, they nine percent, living one payday away In 2015, I interviewed French econo- are using a poverty product from the from broke. The so-called “precariat”. mist Thomas Piketty, the author of bottom of the hourglass. As Tobias painted this brave new Capital in the Twenty-First Century, world to Citigroup’s clients, he noticed who believes that selling to the rich N 1845, FREDERICK ENGELS WROTE something in the room: Total silence. and poor spheres of the hourglass is about Victorian Manchester in his At first Tobias thought this might merely a by-product of inequality; ICondition of the Working Class in simply be shock – but then he realized the underlying process that drives its England: “The members of the money it was something else. There was an perpetuation is wealth extraction from aristocracy can take the shortest expression of awe on their faces as it the poorest to the wealthiest. road through the middle of labouring began to dawn just how much money This, Piketty argues, is uniquely districts without ever seeing they are there was to be made. In the two years dangerous for society as a whole, in the midst of grimy misery.” In Mike between the Citigroup presentation because it tests society’s reason for Davis’s Planet of Slums, the eradica- and the 2008 crash, the companies in existing. It pushes the contract of tion of the poor from view is catalogued across the globe, from slum clearances in Lagos to the displacement of 1.5 million people in Shanghai to make way for a re-skinned city of glittering wealth. Countries across the world, regard- less of their starter-gun wealth, are all in a race to become the same: Malawi, Spain, the United States, the UK, Uzbekistan. We are all morphing inex- orably into the same kind of country with the same basic social stratifica- tion, defined by yawning divergence. We are all becoming equally unequal. “How unequal will we become?” Tasting room open Piketty asks. “If you disenfranchise Monday - Friday 09:00 - 17:00 the middel class, you are dealing with a highly combustible force. If they are & Saturday 09:30 - 15:30 either scared for their future security or growing greedy on a rising economic tide, they will drive revolution.” Cnr of R44 & Winery road, l Other chapters in the book include: between Somerset West & Stellenbosch Cash – who is killing it and why; Risk – how chaos came to Wall Street; Tax – GPS: 34° 1’ 39.06 “ S 18° 49’ 12.83” E why everyone wants to be the Cayman Tel +27 (0)21 855 2374 Islands; Food – owning fat and thin; [email protected] Power – the firms who know everything. www.kenforresterwines.com This extract republished with the kind permission of the author and the publisher, Hodder and Stoughton. n

14 Bidvest boss to sue Vodacom Fed-up executive plans class action against cellphone provider over fraudulent charges

SENIOR BIDVEST CAR HIRE which neither Vodacom (I presume) executive has instructed his nor I have signed up, is both fraud lawyers to launch a class action and a contravention of the Consumer against Vodacom for the tens of Protection Act. millions in unauthorised fees it “I will open such a case against Ahas been charging ignorant cellphone Vodacom should I not receive feedback users on behalf of usually unnamed from Vodacom by 10 October 2017. providers of so-called “content services”. “I also want Vodacom to reimburse In recent years Noseweek has me my money for the past billing date.” received scores of complaints about He was subsequently advised that this fraudulent practice indulged in the two content providers were called by all South Africa’s cellphone service Opera Telecom and MT Digital Systems. providers. Many have appeared in our In the next bill a third emerged, called letters columns. Available evidence Mobiteacher. The latter advised him: suggests the companies themselves “We would like to offer you a full refund receive hundreds of complaints each R520 as a goodwill gesture.” day. They are routinely answered with William Douglas On 10 October he advised Vodacom: a computer-generated, standard “it’s “I am laying a case of fraud today not our problem” letter. Provider shop and was told the against Vodacom and Mobiteacher as More persistent complainants get a following: well as against any other WASP service cheery “you have been unsubscribed” “Content Services are provided by that Vodacom illegally bills me for. I follow-up message or email – with no what the technological boffins call will also institute legal action to have mention of a refund. WASPs. Your account can suddenly all my contracts with Vodacom ended The reason is obvious: the compa- receive extra charges for these WASP immediately.” (He has three Vodacom nies are sharing in the vast sums being services that, unknown to you, subscribe contracts.) pocketed by the fraud operators. you to their sites. For instance, you would When nothing happened, on 11 Why the police and consumer-protec- Google movie times at a cinema and one October Douglas called Desmond tion authorities have failed to take any of these services would hack your IP Luckay of Vodacom Customer Care action remains to be explained. address and then subscribe you to their Services. This month a man with the neces- site and charge you for an unwanted “I informed him of my intention to sary means has decided enough is service. The assistant also told me that file fraud charges against the board of enough. William Douglas, national there is no way that Vodacom can stop Vodacom, including Mohamed Shamel risk manager for Bidvest Car Hire, has this as most of these sites are situated in Aziz Joosub and Till Streichert, for the not only laid charges with the police foreign countries.” illegal amounts deducted by Vodacom in Brakpan, but is also preparing to “I beg to differ,” Douglas told first for ‘content services’ on my September issue summons against Vodacom in a Vodacom, and then Noseweek. and October bills. class action, where victims of the scam “How can Vodacom add charges to “I also informed him that, if Vodacom within the past three years can join. my account without; allows the ‘content services’ amount His decision was triggered by his l A signed contract, with terms and to be deducted again, I will add it as discovery that his September Vodacom conditions from such WASP services? another fraud and theft case, and will, account was R400 hundred higher than l Sending me a proper account of apart from the criminal action, insti- usual. On checking his bill he discov- what these WASP services were, with tute a civil class action for damages. ered that the higher bill was explained names, dates and time used? That way we will discover the full by an entry labelled “content services”. l Attaching the WASP’s invoice to extent of the fraud. In his October account more such my billing from Vodacom? “The way the cell phone companies charges appeared; they now total “The fact that Vodacom simply adds operate is offensive to say the least – R1,000. R1,000 to my contract (I have signed and downright criminal.” – Martin He went to a Vodacom Service for a specific package) for services for Welz.

NOSEWEEK November 2017 15 KPMG whitewash report The one they hoped we’d forgotten

PMG’S DODGY BUSINESS DEALINGS In June last year, the national ciaries who are unable to collect their on behalf of the Guptas have Treasury condoned the payment – only own grants as well. rightly dominated the news in to withdraw their approval when ques- According to amaBhungane: “In recent months. tions were raised by amaBhungane. particular, she relied on an extract from But, Noseweek, having At issue in relation to the R316m the Sassa tender, which projected that Khad a beady eye on KPMG for years, extra payment was, in a nutshell, the the number of ‘grant recipients’ in 2012 has questions about another matter definitions of social grant “beneficiaries” would be about nine million. entirely: the small matter of the audit and social grant “recipients”. “Pappas compared this number of firm’s social grants re-registration “Beneficiaries” are those who qualify recipients with the 22 million grant whitewash. for grants, while “recipients” are those recipients and beneficiaries that CPS Last year amaBhungane journalist who actually collect or receive the had enrolled. She subtracted one million Craig McKune had a closer look at payments. For instance, a child could new enrolments and agreed with CPS claims by Cash Paymaster Services be the beneficiary while her parent or that there were 11.9 million enrolments (CPS) that it had done “extra work” guardian could be the recipient. ‘in excess of the tender requirement’. for the South African Social Security In terms of the original contract and “In effect, comparing apples and Agency (Sassa) entitling it to an extra the service level agreement, besides oranges, she agreed with CPS’s esti- payment of R316m. paying recipients each month, CPS mation that the ‘extra’ enrolments cost CPS was contracted to pay out social was also tasked with enrolment of both R316m.” grants to millions of South Africans on beneficiaries and recipients. It was to be At the time, Pappas and KPMG would behalf of Sassa, because the agency has paid “an all-inclusive fee of R16.44” for not comment. not managed to get its act together to each one. Virginia Petersen signed off the do the job itself. In 2014, CPS claimed But in March 2014, CPS sent Sassa payment in May 2014 and CPS was paid it had enrolled more social grant recipi- an invoice for R316m, claiming it had not long after that. ents than it had been contracted to – enrolled an “extra” 11.9 million people Corruption Watch took the matter and, according to amaBhungane, former – accounting for those cases where up and posed questions to Sassa but Sassa chief executive Virginia Petersen both beneficiary and recipient had to be Petersen claimed in response that the accepted the claim and authorised the registered. payment was justified. R316m payment. Here’s where KPMG comes in. Senior In March 2015, Corruption Watch However, it’s clear that the original KPMG accountant Marlene Pappas launched an application in the North contract between CPS and Sassa submitted a four-page report confirming Gauteng High Court to review and set covered all enrolment work, so there the enrolment of an extra 11.9 million aside Petersen’s decision to pay the was no “extra” work, and that Petersen people. R316m to CPS. Corruption Watch’s – now in retirement – had all the infor- But her sums were incorrect. She review was premised on evidence which mation she needed to refute CPS’s claim wrongly thought CPS was contracted showed that the decision to make the for extra money. to enrol recipients only, and not benefi- payment was unlawful and irrational.

16 The NGO wanted CPS to be ordered to include any procedures relating to the pay back the money. validity or legality of the claim. KPMG whitewash report Corruption Watch has spent a great “KPMG International has reviewed deal of time trying to get the record of the work and file related to this matter decision from Sassa, but to no avail. and we stand by the results of our work.” The matter is set down for hearing on 6 Leanne Govindsamy, head of November. Corruption Watch’s legal investiga- In May last year, Sassa withdrew from tions team had this to say: opposition to the legal action, so CPS is “When we saw the KPMG response now the only respondent. on this payment, what struck us was In light of recent developments the number of disclaimers they had. Noseweek dropped KPMG spokesman At the end of the day, Sassa did rely Pierre Jacobs an email, suggesting that on that document as being an audit. In journalist Craig McKune had done a the end they relied on it to make the better job of investigating the matter payment, so you have to ask questions than their auditor, Marlene Pappas, and about auditors and their role when asking Pappas and KPMG to account for it comes to the expenditure of public their actions. funds, and what the degree of investi- GRAPHIC DESIGN | COPYWRITING | PHOTOGRAPHY KPMG’s Nqubeko Sibiya replied that gation should be. WEB DESIGN | ILLUSTRATION | SOCIAL MEDIA AND MORE KPMG “were engaged to perform proce- “We also have to ask what has been GET IN TOUCH TO TELL US ABOUT YOUR DESIGN NEEDS dures solely surrounding the accuracy of the impact of compiling that report. [email protected] the calculations (the monetary amount) How can you verify a claim without relating to the re-registration claim by having had sight of all the supporting CPS. Our mandate and report did not documents?” – Sue Segar HAVE AN ORIGINAL? Get the biography of Tinus de Jongh You will fnd your PERFECT PARTNER here...

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NOSEWEEK November 2017 17 Fishy business

Judge fnds Cape Town attorney and property developer, Richard Goudvis, to be a poor witness, evasive and a liar. By Martin Welz

N JUNE 2009 NOSEWEEK REPORTED erty developer Richard Goudvis and on a meeting of panicked his fiancee Jamie Lee Kleyn”, with Johannesburg investors in Barry its spectacular views of the city and Tannenbaum’s billion rand the sea (the couple are now married). pyramid scheme, which was held Presenter Ursula, dazzling in pink, atI the offices of attorneys Routledge noted how they had incorporated Modise in Sandton days after they “natural elements of stone, wood learned, via the grapevine, that the and water” into their home, and how pyramid had collapsed. (Warren Drue, their preference for vintage furniture senior partner at Routledge Modise, “means it’s a design masterpiece”. introduced himself to them as a fellow The latest chapter in our story investor.) begins in early 2012, when Graham Noseweek noted that a whole clutch Wooding and his partner Jenneke of Cape investors, who between them Nieves were looking to buy a family had invested over R100m, were repre- home. They declined to put in offers on sented at the meeting by attorneys the first three they viewed: a property Craig Delport (see past noses about in Fresnaye – rejected because they him) – and Richard Goudvis. Delport had seen the plans for a development and Goudvis (full names Richard on an adjoining plot; one in Higgovale – Anthony Leigh) were classmates at declined because they were concerned UCT law school. that a building in front of the property It is Goudvis who has most recently could be demolished and a more intru- again attracted Noseweek’s attention. sive one erected; and in Tamboerskloof But first some background: – because of the development poten- In her May 2014 Ponzi Scheme tial of an adjoining property. Roundup, Los Angeles-based inter- On 27 February 2012 Elisabeth national ponzi scheme blogger Kathy Kretschmer, an estate agent who had Phelps reported that a settlement had had a long association with Richard been reached between Leonard Abel, Goudvis, together with her assistant an investor in Tannenbaum’s ponzi Richard Goudvis and client Nieves, met Goudvis at scheme (noses116,117,121,122), and 13 Chepstow Road in Green Point, the man who had brought him into it, sented that funds were used to buy on Cape Town’s fashionable Atlantic the same Richard Goudvis. active pharmaceutical ingredients seaboard, to discuss their possible “Abel had invested $1 million with from foreign countries which were purchase of that property. Goudvis’s Tannenbaum, expecting to receive his then sold to generic makers to make company was the owner. money back with a 15% profit in 90 antiretroviral drugs.” (See editorial on The next day, 28 February 2012, days. The settlement [with Goudvis] page 6.) Kretschmer, Wooding and Nieves is confidential. Tannenbaum is a fugi- Whatever the settlement with Abel met with Goudvis again at the site. tive, but it is believed that he fled to cost him, it does not appear to have A number of matters were discussed, Australia with his wife after being set Goudvis back that much, because mainly between Wooding and Goudvis, accused of defrauding investors out just a few months later, SABC3 maga- with Wooding keeping notes as the of more than $12bn, in what is known zine show Top Billing took viewers meeting progressed. The discussions as the Frankel Scheme. The scheme on a tour of the “beautiful Balinese- were about the underfloor heating offered returns up to 216% and repre- inspired Cape Town home of prop- system (punted as a special feature

18 of the house), the zoning scheme and ment had already appeared in a local resentations she was “in complete development in the area, and the newspaper, offering residential units shock”. She had always trusted him. neighbourhood in general. Goudvis for purchase in the planned develop- When she confronted Goudvis, he had expressed the opinion that the nearby ment. adopted a smug attitude and said it property at 22/24 Chepstow Road was Had they been aware of this, and that was “tough” [for Wooding]. As a result unlikely to be developed because it the underfloor heating was non-func- she had no further working relation- was a recent purchase and the owners tional – Wooding and Nieves alleged ship with Goudvis. had spent a substantial amount on in a summons for damages they had In his summary of the evidence, improving it. issued out of the Cape High Court – the judge found that Goudvis was He told them that neighbours they would have offered R11.75m (and “extremely vague” about the extent of affected by the development of nearby not R14m) for the property. his knowledge at “any particular point 18 Chepstow Road as a multi-unit In his plea to the summons, Goudvis in time”. In the course of his evidence, residential building had successfully denied they were entitled to damages. Goudvis had given four, contradicting, negotiated a servitude in their favour, He claimed to have had no knowledge explanations for why he had not told which prevented the developer from of the development next door, or of the buyers about the planned develop- obstructing their views. Goudvis also the hole in the pipe of the underfloor ment on the neighbouring property. said that if the owner of 20 Chepstow heating system. He denied that he Immediately after the sale agree- Road wanted to develop that property had represented to Wooding that the ment was concluded, Goudvis had also into a multi-unit residential building, underfloor heating was fully func- advised his bank, Investec, that the neighbours could negotiate a quid pro tional. The property, he said, had been sale of the property included move- quo height servitude in their favour. sold “voetstoots” [as is, without warran- ables to the sum of R250,000. “This Goudvis informed Wooding that the ties]. was false,” the judge noted. owners of the property on the eastern In his judgment, delivered in August Judge Schippers’ final assessment: side of the one he proposed buying this year, Judge Schippers found that “Goudvis – an attorney – was a poor were a Dutch family who had been Goudvis had seen, or had knowledge witness. He is obviously intelligent, living there for a long time. of, the approved plans for the next door yet the record shows that on numerous Days later, on 2 March, Wooding development, had misrepresented to occasions he was deliberately evasive and Nieves met with Kretschmer at the plaintiffs that no development had and refused to give straight answers her office where it was agreed to offer been planned for the adjoining prop- to simple questions, often resorting R14m for the property. A day later the erty, and misrepresented that a Dutch to long exculpatory explanations. At sale agreement was concluded. family lived in it – the latter inven- times he was simply mendacious. He At the time Goudvis was fully aware tion probably to win Nieves’s favour, as stubbornly refused to make conces- that Ashley Stone, the property devel- Goudvis knew she was of Dutch origin. sions when it was obvious that he oper who had sold the house to him, Kretschmer testified in court that should do so. Some of the internal had wanted to develop it, together when she learned of Goudvis’s misrep- contradictions in his evidence have with the neighbouring property, as a already been referred to. His evidence multi-unit, multi-storey, residential also contradicted what was pleaded or complex, but had not been able to do put on his behalf. He had a very good so because of development restric- They planned to memory in relation to events which tions. Which was why Stone had sold it favoured his case, but his memory to Goudvis, who also knew that Stone became hazy when dealing with facts intended to continue developing the make their dream adverse to his defence.” single neighbouring property where But, said the judge, morally repre- no such restrictions applied. And that hensible conduct is not enough to a previous potential buyer had pulled home with a nice establish a legal duty to speak in out of the deal when he learned of the the circumstances. Knowledge of the proposed five-storey flat development planned development was not unique next door, for which building plans had Dutch couple living to Goudvis. Appropriate enquiry from already been approved. the municipal planning authorities None of this did Goudvis disclose to would have revealed this informa- his new buyers. next door. The Dutch tion. It was also common cause that Building would in fact start very the zoning of the neighbouring prop- shortly after Wooding and Nieves erty allowed for a development as was concluded the purchase of what they couple were a figment planned. For this reason, Wooding and planned to make their dream home Nieves’s claim for damages on this with a nice Dutch couple living next point did not succeed. door. The Dutch couple were a figment of Goudvis’s crooked In conclusion, Goudvis was ordered of Goudvis’s crooked imagination – the to pay only the cost of repairing the house, as he well knew, was in fact let underfloor heating system, at a total as temporary student digs until demo- imagination cost of R81,000. Each party was lition could commence. An advertise- ordered to pay their own legal costs. n

NOSEWEEK November 2017 19 Standing up and fghting Magda Wierzycka most recently made headlines when hers was the frst private sector company to fre audit frm KPMG for its role in state capture. She has also weighed in on the social grants fasco and urged public servants to resist Treasury’s plans to raid their pension fund to fnance hopelessly bankrupt state- owned enterprises. By Sue Segar

HE’S TRAVELLED THE WORLD – people are talking about this as a solu- as president because the potential Antarctica, Galapagos, “every- tion. damage he could yet do in a year far where” – with her adventurer “We have access to great technology. outweighs the cost of such a payoff. husband and their two sons, but How difficult is it to equip containers Recently, when Sage accepted the Magda Wierzycka, CEO of asset with desks and cheap laptops and free resignation of Trillian whistleblower, managementS company Sygnia, finds data, with the best teachers available Bianca Goodson (some see it as a Cape Town the most beautiful place in on screen? Class teachers would be straight axing), Wierzycka fired off on the world and South Africa the “most there as monitors and guides. Twitter, sparking outrage at Sage’s incredible” country. “I’d love, in the future, to become apparent lack of care for a brave For this reason, Wierzycka, a refugee part of conversations about inequality, colleague. “Sage has acted disgrace- from Poland, is here to stay and believes but right now I’m focusing on political fully. Yet another corporate not willing that, as a key player in business, she change, so we can get back to talk to take a stand against corruption. has a duty to fight for political change about what really matters.” SA should be outraged,” tweeted here. So she’s not going to stop. Wierzycka, for some time vocal about Wierzycka, and offered Goodson a job, “I don’t want to move or to be a politics and business, recently made which she has accepted. refugee again. I’m a very happy South headline news when Sygnia became Noseweek wouldn’t be Noseweek if African and I will fight for South the first private sector company to fire it didn’t ask whether her more recent Africa. That means contributing to audit firm KPMG for its role in state entry into the public debate is simply solving some of the country’s glaring capture. A regular contributor to the an innovative marketing strategy. problems,” she tells Noseweek in an op-ed pages of major publications, she After all, in a speech for event organ- interview at Sygnia’s swish offices in has weighed in on the social grants isers Heavy Chef, she had described Green Point. fiasco and called on public servants the importance of “fresh breakthrough “I can’t wait for political change to stand up against the Treasury’s ideas” to attract business. to take place so we can get back to reported plans to use the Government “Charging low fees means you don’t talking about what really matters. Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) to have the marketing budgets of the At the moment all the conversations fund hopelessly bankrupt state-owned Coronations and Allan Grays, who are about graft, BEE deals, SASSA enterprises. spend R180 million a year on adver- contracts and people’s sex lives. There She’s said repeatedly that she takes tising, you need creative strategies,” are no real conversations about poverty, corruption personally and will continue she told her Heavy Chef audience. inequality, social welfare, job creation to be outspoken, even if, in the male- “That brings us to where Sygnia was or education. dominated world she inhabits, it is “not six months ago, before we embarked on “I’d love, for instance to help design the done thing”. our activist marketing strategy, which policies on education. I’m convinced She also famously suggested Jacob really wasn’t a marketing strategy.” that one of our solutions is to harness Zuma should be offered “as much She went on to speak about her foray technology to provide free basic educa- money as he wishes and every immu- into commenting on current affairs, tion. We have the tools, yet too few nity under the sun” to stand down starting with an article for Daily

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in relation to firing auditors KPMG, her response is quick: “Trust me, this has nothing to do with marketing. Do I really want to move around with a security team and get death threats?” Some weeks back, Wierzycka filed an urgent interdict against ANN7 owner and former government spokesman Mzwanele Manyi after he accused her on Twitter and Facebook of being guilty of “economic terrorism” and of being a “downright racist who objectifies black people as things that can be bought”. The case was postponed after Manyi’s legal counsel claimed Acting Judge Fiona Dippenaar could not be impar- tial because she and Wierzycka were both white. “He (Manyi) was tweeting about white monopoly capital, and tweeted (falsely) that I was related to Janusz Walus [the Polish-born murderer of former SACP leader Chris Hani]. I then started getting death threats. “He was putting my family and me in danger. You don’t know what those sort of allegations can flush out in terms of people’s emotions. “There were tweets saying, ‘we must get rid of her, where is she, we must eliminate her’. “There were also tweets featuring photo-shopped images of me as a stripper, saying ‘Magda made her money from stripping.’ “These things are unpleasant but you have to see them in the context of what’s going on in South Africa. Literally anyone who speaks out against corruption becomes a target. When it comes to women, they’ll go for the lowest common denominator, which is sex. “It’s not pleasant to look at images of yourself in pornographic visuals, but at the end of the day, I have to laugh and assume they’ve trawled through my life and found nothing, so they have had to manufacture stuff.” An interviewer once asked Wierzycka if she’s looking to be South Magda Wierzycka at her ofces Africa’s (Facebook billionaire) Mark Zuckerberg; another described her as Maverick on social grants and the thing that we have stood for.” “smart, sassy – and scarily ambitious”, goings on at Net1. Not everyone shares Wierzycka’s while 702’s Bruce Whitfield once said “Sygnia’s become a much better view of her activism. A senior corpo- that Wierzycka has South Africa’s fund known brand because of the activist rate source says: “... Magda is building managers “shaking in their boots” stance we have taken and hopefully it’s her personal and corporate profile by through Sygnia’s commitment to cost- a good stance that benefits everyone in speaking out on government. This is a effective retirement annuities with low the process. It’s not inconsistent with golden ticket, a wave to ride.” margins and low fees. the ethos of the company and every- When Noseweek asks about this During our meeting in one of

NOSEWEEK November 2017 21 Sygnia’s boardrooms, she moves from assume that it won’t happen in South sound economic principles in place, but discussing index tracking to market Africa. In fact a number of those things nobody is putting them in place. disruption and on to robo-advisors. are happening already here. We already “We are at real risk of descending She shifts engagingly from the Fourth have a parallel security state; we have from a striving democracy to an auto- Industrial Revolution to talking about our free media starved of government cratic, despotic kleptocracy where her love for art, literature, design and advertising, with all advertising going anything goes.” interior decorating. to New Age and ANN7, so we already Despite the gloomy prospects, Sygnia’s offices resemble an art have propaganda. We have no funding Wierzycka conducts her life and runs gallery. Her PA pops in every now for civil rights organisations – other her company – which has a market and then to update her on something. than private funding – and a paralysed value of R1.4bn – on the basis that Across the corridor in another board- prosecution authority. change will come. room a packed and animated board “It is all very well for OUTA and the “That is where the hope is. Change meeting is taking place. DA to open criminal cases, but nobody will come. It always does! Just think, But right now we’re talking about is investigating. So they’ve paralysed we have about 2,000 corrupt people the state of the nation. while we have a flat-lining economy holding 56 million hostage. This is not “Look at Turkey,” she says. “That and a budget deficit of R50 billion. How sustainable. The fact that we have a country has gone from being a democ- will we fund that? The only way is to free media, that the Gupta-leaks are racy which was negotiating entry into increase tax, so watch February! there for everyone to read means the the EU, into, effectively, a despotic “Nobody is focusing on infrastruc- evidence is playing itself out in techni- autocracy. All it took was a staged coup, ture, on water, or repairing roads. PIC colour for all to see. South Africans will a state of emergency, the arrests of money is already being used to bail force change: an ANC that manages to journalists, the dismissal of academics out state enterprises, which we know do it themselves and someone credible and the changing of the Constitution to are subject to the greatest amount of comes to power is one scenario, but if give the president immunity. That all fraud, corruption and looting. Our that doesn’t happen we can expect happened in three years and we cannot economy won’t recover unless we have a host of other possibilities, such as When the communist cofers ran dry

AGDA WIERZYCKA WAS BORN IN incredible forests, and lakes that are time with her and she told us about Gliwice, a coalmining town in so pure they are used as a baseline their days in the concentration camps. MPoland and grew up in a “tiny for water purity. Communism was big A woman of enormous character. She apartment” with her parents, both on festive celebrations to keep every- told me ‘you can survive anything if doctors, a sister and brother and her body’s spirits up. We weren’t exposed you persevere. Don’t let anything get grandmother. to the west; we didn’t know what was you down. Hard work will get you “Until I was 11 I lived in a func- in the shops across the border.” everywhere. Do things for yourself tioning communist state with free Wierzycka’s paternal grandmother and never depend on a man, ever’.” health care, free education of a high Helena, had a big influence on her. Wierzycka recently went back to standard and where everyone was “She was from a prosperous Jewish Poland with her sister and taped her employed, but they all had the same family in Lvov, which is now part of grandmother’s stories. “We want to things! Everyone lived in 30-square the Ukraine. During World War II her hold that history for our children.” metre apartments; we were one of family and my grandfather Gustav’s The happy Polish childhood came to the lucky families, with a tiny car. I family were sent to concentration an end when, she says, “communism have many memories of the six of us camps. They were the only members ran out of money. Overnight, there squashing into that car! of their families to survive the camps.” were huge shortages. Three million She received an excellent educa- Wierzycka’s grandfather joined the Europeans left the USSR satellite tion, particularly in mathematics and Polish army and was captured and countries to became refugees”. science. Because there was so much placed in a prisoner-of-war camp on Her father organized the paper- pollution in the town, Wierzycka’s the border of Ukraine and Russia to work and the family crossed the parents would regularly ship the kids work as a medical doctor. border into Austria where they were out into the countryside to stay with “My grandmother was living housed in a barracks outside Vienna. a farming family, where they slept on outside of the camp and had already A young man in the bunk bed above haystacks in a loft. given birth to my father. She eventu- her had walked all the way from the “We would help the farmer cut the ally helped my grandfather to escape Ukraine. wheat, roll it into bales and load those by dressing him up as a woman and The South African government onto horse-drawn wagons. Poland has hiding him. We spent a great deal of was at that time keen to import

22 rolling mass action, all the way up to required to turn this ship around. We I grew up in a communist country.” 2019 to try and force a general elec- have slid down this slippery slope [See box story] However, while she was tion,” she said. since Pravin Gordhan was removed as working in the “closed ecosystem” of “It won’t be business as usual if Jacob finance minister. macroeconomics and building busi- Zuma gets a proxy into power. Trade “If the government looting continues nesses, politics did not feature much unions have already taken a stand and past December we are in for big in her life. they’re a powerful force with charis- economic trouble. That changed when she met South matic leaders and an amazing ability “So, my focus right now is on what African businessman and mining to mobilise; we have court cases under happens in December. Some very posi- entrepreneur, Mzi Khumalo, who way and a strong civil society who are tive things are happening, including became a key figure in the develop- not going to keep quiet. the fact that the private sector is also ment of her political awareness. “That’s where the hope is. Political being held to account. Obviously, once “He is a very clever man, and a change will come as this is not a sustain- you paralyse the state prosecuting larger-than-life personality. He spent able state of affairs. The best scenario authorities like Zuma has done, you 30 years on Robben Island and his would be that there is an overhaul in have to look for alternatives, but at the ANC and someone credible comes least the international parent bodies into power. I don’t mind whether it is of some private sector institutions (like Cyril (Ramaphosa) or Zweli (Mkhize) KPMG) can be held to account. – as long as it is not a Zuma proxy – The public outcry over the recent and that they can, at least, stabilise KPMG saga, she believes, is an indi- the institutions that need it, like the cation of how angry South Africans Treasury, the Reserve Bank and SARS. are generally. What drives Magda “Once a few key positions are Wierzycka is what she calls an “overly sorted out, one can start rebuilding developed sense of justice”. the economy, because a lot of work is “Perhaps it derives from the fact that

skills and the army was looking for In 1997 she joined Coronation as a doctors. So in 1987 Wierzycka, then director and Head of Institutional 13, arrived with her parents, brother, Business, and stayed for six and a sister and maternal grandmother half “tough” years. to a Johannesburg winter, speaking “The financial services industry little English and knowing very little is not women friendly. It is driven about apartheid or SA. “Life was a by money, which appeals to people’s scramble. We had to recreate a life greed and fear. There is back-stab- Baby Magda and as kids we had to bring ourselves bing. Women don’t thrive as they are up. We were laughed at and bullied.” generally more teamwork oriented.” She went to Pretoria Girls High She left Coronation in 2003 to stories intrigued me. Listening to School – “the worst years of my life, become chief executive officer of the what Mzi went through woke me up.” teenage girls are so awful” – and African Harvest Group. She nego- Wierzycka had, for many years, then was awarded a bursary to study tiated the R300m sale of a stake in written columns on financial literacy, actuarial science at UCT. African Harvest Fund Managers to aimed at educating consumers about She started her first job in 1993 as financial services company Cadiz in fees and costs. “I always used public a product development and invest- 2006 (making R80m in the process), relations for education. I wrote many ment actuary at Southern Life, had and led the management acquisi- pieces on financial savings issues. her first encounters with sexism and tion of the remainder of the group, She was already well known in the sexual harassment and witnessed resulting in the formation of Sygnia financial services industry when Daily what she calls “appalling corporate as a specialist FinTech company. Maverick asked her for an article. excesses”. “The CEO would fly in and Within ten years, she had grown “That was at the time the Net1/CPS/ land on the lawn in Newlands.” its assets under management from SASSA drama was playing out. I started Wierzycka’s actuarial career ended R2bn to R162bn. In October 2015, digging into what was going on at Net1. after eight months when she discov- Sygnia listed on the Johannesburg It was like reading a horror story. ered the investment department Stock Exchange and the share offer “This company had a stated objective of Southern Life, into which she was twenty times oversubscribed. of exploiting the poor by selling them managed to “wangle” her way. She has headed Sygnia as CEO financial and other services they didn’t Some time later she found herself ever since, as well as serving as a even know about – and nobody was at a dinner seated next to the CEO of council member of the Actuarial hiding it. It was their business model.” Alexander Forbes. A job offer followed Society of SA and as a board member She wrote about it and, next thing, and she was asked to help set up of the Advisory Board of the Centre was being interviewed on radio. “The an investment consulting division. for Africa at Harvard University. n issue reached fever pitch and Allan

NOSEWEEK November 2017 23 Gray stepped in and implemented board changes. I began getting correspondence from women in the townships, who told NEW ON me they were having problems with deductions from their social grants. “Then came Guptaleaks and we saw the looting of the state playing out in technicolour. All the time I was linking everything to these women living off THE SHELVES child grants. My blood began to boil. “Once you know, you can’t unknow. The latest non-fi ction must-reads You can’t go on as normal. I started speaking out. I was watching closely what was happening – and then Who is Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma KPMG happened and I decided to part ways with them.” and what impact will she have on Should more people in business be speaking out as she is? South Africa’s political future? “Absolutely. But so many corporates do business with government that to Whatever role she takes up next within the ANC, Dlamini expect business leaders to stand up Zuma has a part to play in South Africa’s political future. and speak out, is a big ask. “I believe that business will be the Woman in the Wings is a fascinating insight into what last to step up. It’s the civil rights type of leader she may one day become. organisations, the press, the trade unions and the court system who are the defenders of the Constitution and Magda with husband Simon Peile of South Africa.” n

The family that swims with piranhas

AGDA WIERZYCKA MARRIED FELLOW speaking and debating championships. say I work in financial services so actuary Simon Peile in 1996. “I always said I’d be the best mother that I can afford to buy the arts.” M “We met while I was an actu- for them from when they were 15 – She is also passionate about design arial student at Southern Life and he and probably your worst nightmare and interior decorating. “I do all my was at Forbes. A friend introduced us, before then. I wasn’t the mother who own interior decorating in our apart- thinking we’d be a good match. We baked cupcakes as I was working all ment.” hated each other on sight.” They met the time when they were young. I said She is fascinated by the fourth again a few months later, discovered to them, ‘guys, this is the deal … I’ll industrial revolution and technology they were both planning to do the be the type of mother who, whatever for change. “I am engrossed in what’s Argus cycle tour and began training life throws at you, is the first person happening in that area, from virtual together. She’s done ten Arguses in all. you come to. To achieve that, I can’t reality to self-driving cars and the Despite having developed rheuma- be a stay-at-home mother’.” amazing advances in medicine that In this touching homage to A fascinating account A collection of essays toid arthritis, Wierzycka trains for The family loves travelling are happening at an exponential rate.” his friendship with Nelson of South African history that explores what the two-and-a-half hours a day. “I run 15 together. “We’ve been to every corner Developments in cryptocurren- Mandela, George Bizos over the past seventy Constitution means for South kms on the treadmill every day. The of the world, swum with piranhas in cies also intrigue her. “In a financial exercise keeps the arthritis at bay.” the Amazon, been to Angkor Wat in services company, you have to ask how tells a fascinating tale years, through the lens Africans and for the world, She speaks of her sons, Alexander, Cambodia and to some really obscure these developments shape what we of two men whose work of important fi gures with contributors ranging 19, and Nicholas, 17, with pride. places to learn about different invest in, and what the future holds.” affected the lives of all making signifi cant from former Constitutional “Alex has just started at Columbia cultures. That’s when we really bond Asked about other goals, Wierzycka University in New York, studying as a family.” said: “I would like to educate people South Africans. public statements. Court judges to activists, computer science and creative Wierzycka is also an avid art more about finance, and about the writers and philosophers. writing. He’s a talented writer. He’s collector. “My first pay cheque importance of savings. I would like having a ball, but I miss him terribly. was spent on a Pieter van der to make investment and savings a “Nicholas has one more year of Westhuizen painting which cost me lot more accessible for average South AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE. ALSO AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS. school and has just been part of the R4,000. My husband and I collect Africans. That’s what Sygnia is prem- www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za team which won the national public art. We buy what we love. I always ised on.” n

24 NOSEWEEK November 2017 NEW ON THE SHELVES The latest non-fi ction must-reads Who is Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and what impact will she have on South Africa’s political future? Whatever role she takes up next within the ANC, Dlamini Zuma has a part to play in South Africa’s political future. Woman in the Wings is a fascinating insight into what type of leader she may one day become.

In this touching homage to A fascinating account A collection of essays his friendship with Nelson of South African history that explores what the Mandela, George Bizos over the past seventy Constitution means for South tells a fascinating tale years, through the lens Africans and for the world, of two men whose work of important fi gures with contributors ranging affected the lives of all making signifi cant from former Constitutional South Africans. public statements. Court judges to activists, writers and philosophers.

AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE. ALSO AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS. www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za

25NOSEWEEK November 2017 25 Books LEN ASHTON

Hidden depths. Art and politics of casting

RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, THE some evocative illustrations). It is not mesmerising Brad Pitt film a history. It is an anthology of personal featuring the peaceful grace of accounts, cast against the backdrop of expert fly-fishing – and some the flies that developed during that ’70s memorably vicious punch-ups – revolution. neatlyA duplicates contrasting aspects of SOUTH AFRICAN Warning: It should be noted that, before this beautiful new book. Co-author Ed FISHING FLIES gentle and other readers rush off, with Herbst, like heroic Brad P, is ravished by By Peter Brigg and hook, line and sinker, for the nearest body the joys of fly-fishing – when he is not Ed Herbst of water, Cox notes that the fishing sages flaying villains via his fierce investiga- (Penguin Random House) have warned that it takes 10,000 hours to tive columns in the Daily Maverick and become truly expert at something. “This elsewhere. book encapsulates a collective wisdom Fly-fishing? We, the uninformed, have that spans lifetimes and runs to hundreds no notion of the serious social influence of thousands of hours”. of these powerful mysteries in South It certainly doesn’t appear that our Africa. Apparently fly-fishing tourism politicians, by and large, are capable of and, in particular, trout tourism, under- the concept of collective wisdom. Mind pins the economies of many commu- you, there were rumours some years ago, nities. It is the basis for the country’s during Constitutional birth pangs, that growing aqua culture, and thousands of Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer had people owe their livelihoods to the fact enjoyed a thoughtful piscatorial splash that many fellow-citizens enjoy hunting South African between negotiations. Which sounds fish, using lures of fur and feather. fishing flies vaguely encouraging, should C.R. accede So, it seems, while politicians sink their – an anthology of milestone patterns to the crown. fangs into each others’ throats and South Beginner fisherpersons (PC obtrudes Africa squelches through corruption mire, even here) should know that there are some 100,000 fly-fishers ply quiet waters sometimes religious overtones to fly- and think long thoughts. Millions fish for fishing literature. Ted Leeson (Inventing bass and carp, but the fly-ers cast a big Montana) remarks that fly patterns “bear tourism shadow. They have their own the stamp of our individual minds. Our magazines, hold international gather- theories are impressed with something of ings, and inculcate a love of angling in who we are, and the choice of patterns we their offspring and communities. carry discloses something of us”. In an informative foreword, Ian Cox peter brigg and ed herbst Many names of flies conjure romance: pays tribute to “a small number of fly- think Hover Dragon Nymph, the Red fishers whose vision, passion, skill and Eyed Damsel, Sunken Terrestrials. commitment” revolutionised the entire Others not: Mario’s Inch Worm, Sand exercise in the 1970s. Previously, flies Flea etc. As for White Death, let’s keep and tackle were generally bought by politics out of it. mail order from Britain. Those revolu- Peter Brigg is a freelancer, interested tionaries who contributed to the book, in hiking, photography and art, and is or are mentioned in it, created a torrent author of the fly-fishing guide Call of the of developments: fishing syndicates, Stream. specialist shops, fly-tying clubs and Ed Herbst, at age five, caught a rock cod much else beside. Fly-fishing for other and was hooked for ever. But somehow species, such as yellow fish, bass, carp he has found time to expose the sins of and barbel, took off. his former employers, the SABC, and The book is a handsome tome sundry other enemies of the people. And (co-author Peter Brigg is responsible for courageously continues to do so. n

26 Letter from Umjindi BHEKI MASHILE

Laughter. Gotta love street vending mamas

AUGHTER IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL. supermarkets, and so on. They were indeed thrust – as I went about deliv- If you don’t believe that, well, worse than the Indian discounters. ering green peppers to these mamas’ it’s quite clear you need a good And so fearful of their mlungu bosses stalls. laugh, ha ha! But alas, there they could never make a decision, and Within 30 minutes I encountered a are those times when you are instead referred you to the mlungu discount-demander. Funny how her Lforced to laugh, much as you really do (the white man) in Jozi or head office. veggie stall was set up in our Indian not want to – or feel you ought not to I am reminded of one such mlungu area; go figure! laugh. Both easier and more difficult who was very irritated with my call. Then as I made my way to town I is when you have to laugh at yourself. “Why the hell do I have these idiots encountered a straight-shooter who Which is what I found myself doing, as managers if they can’t make a bitched and complained about the following an interaction with one of simple decision to advertise in a size of the peppers. the loyal vendor mamas who buy my community newspaper? I have never I was not in the mood to argue, or produce. seen the newspaper nor do I know the explain that the particular variety But this laughter was long in coming. community that well. How the heck does not get much bigger than this. In fact, it had been boiling up within do I know what the people there read? What was the point in trying to do me for many years, not prompted, These idiots are supposed to be our so? I was already livid that she was however, by the veggie mamas but eyes and ears on the ground. Sorry squeezing my peppers while clearly by interactions with advertisers as I about all this. not intending to buy. feverishly sought to secure adverts “Tell them I said they can place an While the first two veggie mamas for my beloved Umjindi Guardian ad in your newspaper and they can might have irritated me, I had no community newspaper. The veggie call me if there is any problem.” choice but to laugh at the third one I mamas just lit the fuse, to let off my Suffice it to say that every time encountered. explosion of laughter. thereafter when directed to a black To my relief she bought a crate You see Nosey ones, while pursuing store-manager I would simply ask without fuss. That is, until she began adverts I learned very quickly to him or her for the mlungu’s contact checking them while I was transfer- assess the attitude of potential adver- number. Of course there were always ring them from my crate to one of tisers. This education prompted me to those few exceptions when the brother hers. classify them in racial categories; not from the other mother would make There you go; this mama, just like the most politically correct thing to the decision. my local Pick n Pay produce buyer do, but heck, sometimes stereotypes And what does this have to do with does, checked each and every single fit perfectly. the veggie mamas? Simple. I have pepper. Quality, quality, what can one Now then, when dealing with learned from them that the more do? an Afrikaner shop-owner or store- things change the more they stay the So this mama picks out three manager I knew I would be dealing same. Oh! Another lesson – maybe peppers she is not happy with. I take with a straight shooter: “yes I will just maybe my racial breakdown of the three and throw them in a crate place the ad” or “no thanks I am things was not exactly fair. in the back of the bakkie. Well, I get not interested”: straightforward, no Look, it’s true that among the my payment, jump in, start up, and beating about the bush. Gotta love mamas I have encountered straight- as I am about to pull away she yells, that. shooters like my Afrikaner adver- “Hey, you are not leaving here without Then there were the Indian traders, tisers and discount-demanders like replacing my three peppers”. whom I infamously titled the ‘do I get my Indian merchants, but, thank For just a moment I looked at myself a discount?’ I knew full well that if my God all mighty, no mama has referred in the rear-view mirror – and then I ad was, say, R1,000, I would walk out me off to a mlungu. How could they? laughed and laughed until I cried. I of there with a measly R300, if that. Oh man oh man, what a relief they have just created a new stereotype: Of course my Indian friends always cannot. the sharp-eyed black vegetable- had a good laugh at my on-the-spot This reality of ‘the more things vendor mama. And, I fear, there could observations. change the more they stay the same’ be a stereotype of a black vegetable Then there were the black was thrust upon me – yes thrust, farmer beginning to emerge. What the managers, mainly of big retail shops, not impressed, not revealed but yes hell was I laughing at? n

NOSEWEEK November 2017 27 Not rocket science SIBUSISO BIYELA

Plastiki. Taxing a choking hazard

HE NICE LADY AT THE TILL WITH caked make-up and barely- detectable smile greets me with a “Plastiki?” after she finishes scanning my loaf of bread and Tthe recent issue of Noseweek, at my local Pick n Pay. Funny – as a child, plastic shopping bags were called ushekhasi, after the Checkers chain of supermarkets our parents frequented. Back then I imag- ined the name came from the sound a bag made when vigorously handled. In the good ol’ days before 2003, plastic bags were as free as the air we breathed or the TV we never paid for, and it was quite the news story when government ordered by law this business of charging our parents for ushekhasi, making these pieces of trash as valuable as the groceries they The cost of plastic carrier bags carried – in the minds of the grown- ups at least. African we responded with a collective Online (IOL) reported that between I got interested in the topic after “challenge accepted”. According to a 2003 and 2014 the state had pocketed Kenya recently announced an outright 2010 study by Dr Johane Dikgang at the R1.1bn from sales of plastic bags, and ban on plastic bags, with violations University of Cape Town, the average around 5 billion schmeckles went to earning a sentence of up to four years 46 cents charge on a 24-litre bag isn’t retailers for ushekhasi. and a fine of up to US$ 40,000. I believe enough to curb our appetite for these With figures like this we are effec- this bodes well for dealers of illicit turtle-chokers, and the effect of the levy tively throwing money away, and I can bags in the black market. It seems a has diminished over the long term. imagine that these bags might become tad excessive, but the Kenyan govern- In appealing to our better nature, tradeable currency in the post-apoc- ment is reportedly sick of pulling another effect government expected alyptic near-future. These choking bags from the stomachs of dead cows, of us with the levy was that we would hazards have the uncanny ability to to avoid risk of contaminating the re-use the bags, but South Africans last from 500 to a thousand years, beef. Besides – the poor cows! In one have found it inconvenient to carry unless – wait for it – we recycle! reported case 20 bags were removed them to the shops. Or so the UCT Money is also not an object since you from a distressed animal. study reports. The bags that don’t pay only around 50 cents each time So Kenya introduced a complete end up lining city dumps make for you say “yes” to the plastiki lady, and shutdown on all plastic bags entering good bachelor-pad rubbish bags, or there is the added benefit of job crea- the local market, to help protect the the occasional impromptu glove for tion. The Kenyan example is extreme, environment. According to an August clearing out a triggered mousetrap. since it might lead to up to 80,000 2017 BBC News story, many people The then Department of jobs lost, according to manufacturers prefer to comply with the ban than Environmental Affairs and Tourism in Kenya; we should count ourselves risk a massive fine or the alterna- had hoped revenue generated from lucky in this regard. tive of a four-year jail term, and I find the levy would create jobs in the plas- I myself have elected to buy large, myself wondering why. tics recycling sector, but, to nobody’s woven bags with Orlando Pirates When South Africa introduced the surprise, the money ended up lining crossbones emblazoned on the side, plastic bag levy in 2003, it was in an the coffers of Treasury – and the – despite being a Chiefs’ fan. We all effort to make us use less of them, but pockets of our retailers. A November make sacrifices to save the environ- in the strange spirit of things South 2016 news report in Independent ment. n

28 Down and Out ANNE SUSSKIND

Guns and butter. Glad of the nanny state

USTRALIA IS CONGRATULATING designed to encourage people to hang Onward and downward, to more itself on its gun control laws, around longer to increase the chance of petty aggravations: driving on a ‘post Las Vegas’, and American noticing someone at risk. narrow tree-lined road, I am blocked commentators are looking On the other side of the road, wedding by a garbage truck. A line of cars builds for Australia-style solutions. pics are all the go, what with sparkling up behind me as the “garbos” go about AThere has not been a mass killing bay and quaint backdrop. their leisurely business, one even (defined as five or above shot) in the Cold comfort it may be for South stopping for a “smoko”. I’m in a hurry, past 21 years – since the government’s Africans (and admittedly the weather so try a little toot and a wave of the gun “buyback” after the horrific Port bureau is forecasting that it will soon hand to indicate that there’s a space Arthur massacre, in which a 28-year- come bucketing down), but Sydney has to the right, and if they just pulled old gunman, Martin Bryant, shot had the driest September on record. over a little, I could squeeze through 35 dead and wounded another 23 Just 0.2mm of rain was recorded, with in my tiny, tiny inconspicuous and customers seated in a café in Tasmania. the previous lowest at 2.1mm in 1882. un-self-important car. They’re obliv- The half-a-billion dollar gun buyback, Temperatures reached 41.4 in Bourke, ious. I get out, and patiently explain funded by a special tax, saw more than in the north west of NSW. in my best non-South African accent. 660,000 guns “seized and destroyed”, On the environmental front, low- “Fuck you lady”, comes the reply, and and was accompanied by the creation lying Pacific islands which are at they dawdle along. Incensed, I take of a national firearms registry and a risk because of sea-level change are down the licence number to ring the flat-out ban on automatics, semi-auto- complaining that Australia’s energy council – only to double the pain: for matics, and shotguns. Gun-deaths went emissions have hit record highs and the next 22 minutes and 16 seconds I down, whether homicides or suicides. A half of the coral on the Great Barrier listened to local government on-hold more recent national amnesty saw a Reef has been predicted to die this muzak as I made my way to the super- further 28,000 guns surrendered. year. Add to this that while Australia market. Get there, and have just been Not quite so high-minded, self- has more statues of animals than of connected to the operator when my congratulatory Immigration Minister women (only 3% of public sculptures phone shuts down; no reception in the Peter Dutton boasts how other coun- in Australia honour non-fictional, non- bowels of Woolworths. Next, I wonder tries want to emulate Australia’s royal women), koala bears are being about the grand plan that has seen the successful hard-line stop-the-boats killed, injured or made homeless by blackberry cordial from New Zealand policies. Immigration concerns were deforestation of “corridors” by tree- (described to me once as “a creepy behind the coalition victory here in felling, and opposition is growing to little utopia”), moved to a different 2013, followed by the Brexit victory, a Aus$1bn government loan for the aisle and I am mildly pissed off that Trump, and the surge of support for Adani coal mine. the bagels only come in packs of four the far right in Germany, says when I need just two. Then I this puffed-up man. notice that underpants (for my Recently, driving from the teenager) skip straight from very gorgeous once-upon-a-time kids 13-14 to medium or large fishing village of Watson’s Bay for men, no small men here today (think Kalk Bay) in the early (or whenever I look), and I go on morning, I saw a posse of police a riff to a nearby woman – what cars and a helicopter whirring. is it with these men, can they Not hard to guess why: it’s The not cope with being small, are Gap, Australia’s most famous they like fast-food hamburgers, suicide spot, the high cliff where always upsizing? – but I end up people go to jump, despite in a good mood because she and I a CCTV system and dozens talk schools, and she smiles and of cameras, a virtual fence says that while our sons’ school detecting movement on the cliff may not be all that academically side of the actual fence which challenging, “It may not be the triggers a police alarm, special school, it’s just my son.” lighting, and “social spaces” The Gap, Watson’s Bay Sane again! n

NOSEWEEK November 2017 29 Last Word HAROLD STRACHAN

Liberal. The hypocrisy problem

ELL LET’S BE GENEROUS AND own business. He just seemed not to Apropos trout streams; I’ve always say we all do our best not understand the devices of hypocrisy, suspected the creed of the trout priest- to be false and ungra- which you may call naïveté, but I call hood, that their exotic Salmo fario is cious, though candidly I innocence. Indeed I often wonder too genteel to ravage our indigenous wouldn’t want to enter these days if, in 1968 when the law river fauna, eating only flies as they intoW too much debate about that, what said all political parties had to declare do. As if our local vegetarian water- with the assorted scoundrels presently their racial orientation, the Liberal creatures have no use of such nunus stomping about the Mid-East, and in Party had gone silently underground anyway. So being cantankerous by our own history to this very date our instead of disbanding on principle. The nature and generally unsporting I took home-grown breed filling our screens Progressive Party declared itself to be a R1 coin and bent it double in a vise, and speakers with sanctimonious White, a stigma attached to it this very then threaded the very lightest of nylon phisogs and vapid declamation. day as the DA. line through the fold-over gap and tied Seems there are decent and inde- And you had to work pretty hard on the very smallest triple-hook and, cent people, regardless of ideology and at being evil for Peter to judge you in with a highly-verboten fixed-spool reel, class and ethnicity and all the rest of any way, so joining a gaggle of decrepit dropped this highly-naturalistic wrig- the crap we hurl at each other by way old 1950s political coelacanths gling tiddler with the greatest of self-justification. Me, I care neither for the Christmas loaf accuracy right at the far end feather nor fig where people lay their and beerswill in the of a long pool, wound it dedication: God, Mammon, Charlie Drakensberg eventu- upriver right next to the Marx, pick your own prophet and tell ally became the high bank and voila! Breakfast your own beads, it’s your concern, but point of geriatric fun. for All! don’t square things with your chosen His decrepit cottage But there I go again. deity when you’ve robbed your people was pretty geriatric I forgot; I started with and laid waste the economy of your too, come to think the hypocrisy problem country, then come and tell me you’re and ended up with just armed with righteousness. another fishing yarn. Well True hypocrisy is a great old skill. then, you see, along with the Why, I’ve just seen a bombastic theft of the country’s money piece in a right-wing London the main ingredient of hypoc- paper by a self-proclaimed SA risy is the need for acclaim. Struggle Person name of Johnson, Fame. Status. I’ve been a pom who in 1963 had the habit around in this dog-eat- of taking tea with certain self- dog political world a long dedicated political figures in South time, and I tell you, Cdes, Africa, and when things got warmish there have been few in buggered off and declared when he it who weren’t driven by came back in 1994 that the Security such purpose. Now Peter Branch had been after him back then didn’t understand acclaim so they could badly torture him, and either. Not that he didn’t now he’s the lonely self-hero of decent get it, he just didn’t know democracy whom nobody wants to what to do with it. revere because they’re all sycophants One doesn’t want to fall in the Game for Personal Acclaim and about too much in lamenta- Riches. That’s what I mean; plenty of of it, held in place by steel tie-rods tion over death. It is the Second Law of hypocrisy around. like some old bloke’s failing limbs. Thermodynamics at work: all physical In which matter, you see, the curious Devoid of luxury, minimal, ascetic. For systems fall into increased disorder thing about Peter Brown of the old passing German tourists and Japanese over time. Planets, stars, galaxies, the Liberal Party was that he didn’t know aesthetes on their way to the cave paint- Universe. You must just try to add how to be a hypocrite. It wasn’t that ings along the escarpment the first something to the world while you’re in hypocrisy was in contravention of his introduction to God’s Own Wilderness it. Well, Peter did. scriptures, whatever they may have was clapped-out old pensioners Old age is not for sissies, said he been, I never asked him, nor did he standing naked in a trout stream next when the Second Law hit him. I salute ask me about mine, that was our to the road, covered in soap. him. n

30 Smalls ads must be booked and paid for online. Book at: SMALLS www.noseweek.co.za

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NOSEWEEK November 2017 31