{"id":654475,"date":"2026-06-17T15:07:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T13:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=654475"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T13:10:15","slug":"makates-please-call-me-settlement-with-vodacom-was-actually-r1-billion-says-former-backer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/654475-makates-please-call-me-settlement-with-vodacom-was-actually-r1-billion-says-former-backer.html","title":{"rendered":"Makate’s Please Call Me settlement with Vodacom was actually R1 billion, says former backer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vodacom allegedly paid R1 billion to settle the drawn-out Please Call Me case with Nkosana Kenneth Makate in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This detail was contained in a statement issued by Makate\u2019s former financial backer, Errol Elsdon, in which he announced that he was suing Makate for defamation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsdon\u2019s announcement that he was suing came after Makate accused his former litigation financier of fraud, launched legal action against him, and threatened to criminally prosecute him<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makate settled his case against Vodacom in November 2025, ending 17 years of litigation over the Please Call Me service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Vodacom nor Makate revealed the settlement amount, citing non-disclosure provisions both parties agreed to during negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, due to a quirk of Johannesburg Stock Exchange rules, Vodacom published its estimated half-yearly earnings before the settlement was announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It then had to publish revised numbers after the settlement was reached. By comparing its two earnings announcements, it was possible to calculate a range<\/a> for the settlement amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the earnings impact caused by the settlement, the estimate indicated that Vodacom paid Makate between R353 million and R748 million for his idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Elsdon said the amount was closer to R1 billion. That meant his company\u2019s 40% claim against Makate is worth R400 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makate won the settlement after successfully arguing before the Constitutional Court in 2016 that he had been promised and was owed compensation for an idea he had 16 years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working as a trainee accountant at Vodacom, he pitched the idea of a method to \u201cbuzz\u201d someone else\u2019s phone without airtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makate proposed his idea in a memo dated 21 November 2000, addressed to his former manager, Lazarus Muchenje. He called it the \u201cbuzzing option\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to an internal Vodacom newsletter, his idea was ultimately developed into Please Call Me, which launched on the Vodacom network in 2001, albeit almost three months after MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makate sent Vodacom a letter of demand in 2007, stating that he was owed compensation for the idea. He launched court proceedings in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite initially losing in the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), Makate took the matter to the Constitutional Court, which ruled in his favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 years in court, 9 years to settle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Errol Elsdon, former funder of Nkosana Makate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s apex court ruled that a verbal agreement existed between Vodacom and Makate and ordered them to negotiate suitable compensation in good faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreseeing that such negotiations would end in deadlock, the court also ruled that Vodacom\u2019s CEO should act as the deadlock breaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was in honour of a commitment a Vodacom executive made to Makate, in which he promised to discuss a possible reward with then-CEO Alan Knott-Craig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Makate rejected a R47 million offer from Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub and returned to court to contest the way he had calculated the compensation offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, Makate won in the High Court and the Supreme Court. However, Vodacom appealed to the Constitutional Court, which overturned the SCA\u2019s ruling in a scathing judgment<\/a> and declared a mistrial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days before Vodacom\u2019s appeal was due to be reheard in the Supreme Court before a new panel of judges, it announced that it had agreed to a settlement with Makate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after, Black Rock Mining instituted a claim against Makate, arguing that it was entitled to 40% of the settlement under a 2011 litigation funding agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This triggered a flurry of legal activity, including Black Rock seeking an order for 40% of Makate\u2019s settlement to be withheld pending a determination. Black Rock also pursued arbitration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makate\u2019s funds have since been released, and Black Rock has agreed to stay its arbitration application in favour of Makate launching High Court proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Makate also recently said he was seeking a nolle prosequi<\/em> certificate from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to allow a private prosecution of Elsdon for fraud and forgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This triggered a response from Elsdon, who announced on Wednesday that he had instructed his attorneys to sue Makate for defamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When MyBroadband previously contacted Vodacom and Makate to confirm whether the settlement was indeed R1 billion, they declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is nothing new we can add. The Vodacom Board approved a settlement agreement, and the parties settled the matter out of court,\u201d a Vodacom spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe settlement remains confidential. At the time, we noted that the parties were pleased that finality had been reached.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom also took extraordinary steps to ensure the settlement remained confidential, absorbing it into its overall expenditure and barely mentioning it in its recently released annual report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom allegedly paid R1 billion to settle the drawn-out Please Call Me case with Nkosana Kenneth Makate in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":567948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20999,102278,20801,41],"class_list":["post-654475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-errol-elsdon","tag-nkosana-kenneth-makate","tag-please-call-me","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654477,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654475\/revisions\/654477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}