R3480 news you’re not supposed to know (including VAT) nosewee k Rabie giveth – 131SEPTEMBER and taketh away ANC secretly learnt their 2010 tricks from the Nats Reserve Bank still hiding apartheid-era looting WOEMA! Advertise in SA’s most trusted publication Phone Hans Muhlberg or Adrienne de Jongh 021 686 0570 [email protected] SUBSCRIBE to noseweek and SAVE R81 on the retail price: see PAGE 32 noseweek online SEPTEMBER2010 ISSUE131 Get access to the noseweek archive of saints, sinners and rogues Reserve Bank’s smelly not-so-little secret page 9 Buy noseweek’s online 4 Letters Noseweek and the hit parade edition for only 6 Dear Reader The heady whiff of bribery R278 7 Notes & Updates Disarming robbery at Moti HQ n Playing cops and robbers n Sweet and sour cell service Wherever you want 14 Diamonds in the dust Two communities were supposed to benefit from gems mined from restored land – but one was left out in the cold it....whenever you 16 Smashed! When a multi-millionaire businessman went on a drunken rampage he wrecked a lot more than just the seven cars he tore into want it 18 The Hole truth Favours and favouritism at the diamond dorp courts 20 Lies, damned lies and litigation The Law Society eyes a tangled web of fat fees and long delays 22 Hot wheels Bikers beware! You could be taken for an extremely expensive ride 24 ‘Jake White threatened me with Kebble killer’ Veteran sports writer Dale Granger remembers menacing talk during the 2006 Tri-Nations 26 Dream verdict for bent reverends Fraudsters pray their way out of hellish prison sentence www. 27 Rabie Property monkeys around on the 14th floor With one hand they noseweek.co.za gaveth luxury facilities and with the other they tooketh away 30 Not quite like the brochure A retirement development delivered a lot less in reality than was mentioned in their publicity material 33 Books Sleepwalking in a Surveillance Society 35 Country Life Where there’s smoke n Fear and loathing in Mpumalanga 37 Last Word Naval Foefies SUBSCRIBE to noseweek and SAVEnoseweek S EPTEMBERR81 2010 on the retail price: see PAGE3 32 Letters Making the hit parade n Congratulations! By be- No-one is above the law. We ately after his tragic death. It was good to learn that the ing on Kebble’s hit list, your will name and shame them. Your report has caused Kebble “hit-men” failed to credibility has just shot up Chad Thomas many ripples in the security get you. by 300%. This is better than Johannesburg industry. I am certain Ray- Errol Friedmann winning the Pulitzer! mond would loudly applaud Meridien Group, Cape Town Mousy Mandarin Van Staden deeply missed your skills in revealing the Noseweek’s editor was on Cape Town Raymond van Staden (“The disgusting behaviour of cer- the late tycoon’s hit list. The n I’m really really glad that spy who went in too deep”, tain family members, col- above letter and the simi- you are safe from the mad- nose129) was a colleague leagues, employees and a larly supportive notes below ness around us! and friend and is sadly former girlfriend. Particu- are selected from the many Pam missed. The actions of the larly distressing is that so kind notes received. Thank Sun Valley parties as described in your many people in the security you. – Ed. The above are just some of article in the days after his industry are apparently not the witty and supportive death are disgusting and to be trusted. Do they loot n I suppose one should see messages received after the horrendous. I sincerely hope their clients’ desks as well? being on a Kebble hit list news broke that I had been that they are all brought to One can only hope that the as a compliment, but I’m amongst those on the Kebble book. As for the sanctity of police actually do their job pleased nothing came of it! hit list. Thank you all! – Ed. brotherhood – no comment! and that justice will pre- Martin Plaut Mike Irving vail. I also hope that SARS Africa Editor, BBC, Bush House, London No escape for Investec By email has taken note of the large Your editorial about Invest- amounts of foreign ex- n I see you’ve brought new ec (nose130) was superb. My n Congratulations on a fine change allegedly looted by meaning to the phrase “mak- wife Glenda and I thank you piece of investigative jour- a Cape Town financial advi- ing the list”. for vindicating us. We’re just nalism on the looting of pri- sor. (That photograph of her Mel getting started: next stop, vate investigator Raymond should have been on your By email the Constitutional Court. van Staden’s estate immedi- cover.) Joubert Pretoria Gus Why no ponzi action? I have been wondering why no further news ever surfac- es regarding ponzi masters Tannenbaum and Rees, the perpetrators of one the big- gest scams ever to hit this country. I’m truly amazed at the fact that nothing has been heard about what progress, if any, is being made in this case. No meet- ing of creditors has been held and the investors are simply being kept in the dark whilst T and R appear (on the surface anyway) to be leading “normal” lives – it’s preposterous. Some investors have been subpoenaed to appear before the Master and a bank of at- torneys in Johannesburg is attempting to recover all monies paid to them regard- less of whether investors lost or made money. This smacks of desperation as they try and recover whatever they possibly can in order to con- tinue drawing their fees. For doing what exactly? Ponzi Pooper Cape Town The Emperor wonders what to wear 4 noseweek SEPTEMBER 2010 No audit on World Cup? the same problems, which censed bandwidth and the grow new heads as the old Congratulations on your are also reflected in the re- SA public are paying for are chopped off, and that the report on what some of the cent correspondence in the this – in my case I estimate noseweek team might even- top Fifa officials are up to press between Trevor Noah about R500/month for at tually lose heart. I wonder (nose128) – even if it’s cold and the CEO of Vodacom. least the last few months. how you stay “clear” amidst comfort to know that such I started corresponding I suggested to Mr Cassim the endless poison that you goings-on occur throughout with Vodaphone about this that all I wanted was an have to swim in – because the world and not just in in late May. After some thir- admission by Vodacom that even as I thank God for SA. ty or more emails and calls their bandwidth was over- your latest exposé, I liter- “ Will we ever be told the to the so-called customer subscribed and a refund of ally grow ill. It takes me truth about how much mon- care help line, all I got was the cost to me for the last hours, even days, to recover ey the World Cup brought an offer to test my signal few months. He stated hope for our “civilization”. into SA and how much left at home. All attempts to quite emphatically that I am tempted to stop, but the country? How much did escalate the complaint got that would not be possible. have decided to continue it – will it – really cost the nowhere. I’m now escalating this to reading, in solidarity, and taxpayer? I believe that Whatever technology Vo- Icasa, in accordance with in order to stay alert to the It’s preposterous that ponzi fraudsters Tannenbaum and Rees appear to be leading normal lives many in the hospitality in- dacom is using to measure their guidelines, and trust dark side of our political, dustry lost a lot of money, dropped calls (which I be- they will do an independent business and social reality. upgrading hotels and guest lieve is part of their license investigation. I believe they But I’m wondering: would houses which were fully condition) somehow (and will find that wholesale fraud it be feasible to devote some booked by Fifa and then not surprisingly) it meas- is being perpetrated on South pages to hopeful initiatives, “cancelled shortly before the ures perhaps 1% of the Africans, rich and poor. or stories of positive change? tournament, when they had REAL number of dropped Dr Richard Doyle Surely, noseweek could not no chance of finding other calls I suffer. I have offered Greenside, Johannesburg exist unless there was a guests. to provide an affidavit to powerful and realistic ideal If this was the USA, might this effect, and for somebody Don’t lose heart noseweek! which drives it? It would they all have got together from Vodacom to accompany Thank you to the noseweek be absolutely super to have and instituted an action for me for a few hours to wit- team for persisting against this ideal revealed in exam- damages? ness this – again to no avail. impossible odds. Thank you ples in each edition. John Nugent I finally got put through to for uncovering the danger- Rob Small Upington Faizel Cassim, the head of ous truth of so much nasty Harfield Village, Cape Town the Vodacom escalation de- behaviour among our so- n I’ve said it before: there’s Vodafraud partment. All he would say called social, political and a nose week in every month I have an account with Vo- was that Vodacom was Icasa business “leadership” and – you need the other three daphone/Vodacom.