Makate guns for man behind ‘attempts to extort me’

“Please Call Me” inventor Nkosana Makate seeks to privately prosecute a British investor who is claiming 40% of his multimillion-rand settlement with Vodacom.

After a two-decade battle with Vodacom for compensation which ended with an out-of-court settlement last year, Makate has entered a fresh battle against an investor claiming almost half his money.

Errol Elsdon’s company, Black Rock Mining, has gone to the Johannesburg high court seeking a share of the settlement. He claims Makate entered into a binding contract 15 years ago.

In response, Makate has hauled Black Rock Mining to the Pretoria high court in a bid to have its claim of entitlement dismissed due to misrepresentation and forgery.

Makate said the company, which never traded and had no assets, never funded his legal battle with Vodacom and therefore deserved no share of his settlement.

“I am not worried about this [claim]; it is just that institutions like the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) have been dragging their feet in prosecuting this fraud, hence the abuse of the civil court process by Errol Elsdon,” Makate told the Sunday Times this week.

Neither our client nor this firm has previously been made aware of any alleged application by Mr Nkosana Makate for a nolle prosequi certificate or the basis upon which such application may have been made

—  Errol Elsdon via his lawyers, SN Mnguni Attorneys

Makate claims his signature was forged on a contract with the company.

The claim dates back about a decade, when a legal battle between Makate and Elsdon’s other company, Raining Men, played out through arbitration and courts. Raining Men failed in several legal bids to lay claim to a payout during negotiations between Makate and Vodacom, while Black Rock Mining failed in a December court bid to block Makate from accessing Vodacom’s payout.

Makate now seeks a nolle prosequi certificate from the NPA, confirming that it has declined to prosecute the case, which was opened in 2018. Once he has this, he can launch a private prosecution against Elsdon.

“This is clear fraud … I have shouldered the risk for my matter alone all these years,” Makate said.

If the state was not prepared to prosecute the matter despite him having provided them with evidence of the alleged forgery, he was ready to do it himself.

NPA North Gauteng spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said she was unable to comment as she needed more time to gather facts on the matter.

However, Mahanjana said she was aware that Makate had made representations to former national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi.

Elsdon responded via his lawyers, SN Mnguni Attorneys, saying he was unaware that Makate sought to privately prosecute him.

“Neither our client nor this firm has previously been made aware of any alleged application by Mr Nkosana Makate for a nolle prosequi certificate or the basis upon which such application may have been made,” the law firm said.

Elsdon did not respond to specific questions about the forgery allegations.

The law firm, however, denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

“Without commenting on the substance of the allegations at this stage, our client denies any suggestion of criminal conduct, including any allegation of forgery, fraud or dishonesty, in the strongest possible terms.”

The law firm said it would be in a position to respond “early next week, once we have had an opportunity to consider the matter and allegations fully”.

Makate had reached an agreement with the late Christiaan Schoeman in 2011, who nominated Black Rock Mining to carry out the deal and fund Makate’s legal battle with Vodacom for compensation.

Elsdon is a fraudster that hides behind shelf companies to defraud me. He has tried this fraud with Raining Men by signature fraud and now with Black Rock, a company that was initially deregistered in the British Virgin Islands and resuscitated when the Raining Men fraud failed. Both companies have never funded my case

—  Nkosana Makate

Makate said after he lost in the high court before his big win in the Constitutional Court in 2016, Black Rock and Raining Men were never there.

“These guys ran away after I lost a case in the high court before judge Coppin, which was in 2013/2014 when these guys disappeared and stood on the sidelines waiting for things to happen all these years,” Makate said.

The civil action against him for his payout was an attempt to “fleece and extort, as there were now spoils on the ground”.

“Both companies never funded my case; hence, this is a fraud. And the fraudulent signatures which they purported in arbitration and high court have been proved not to be mine by an experienced signature expert,” Makate said.

He said the NPA has allowed Elsdon to abuse civil court processes.

“Elsdon is a fraudster that hides behind shelf companies to defraud me. He has tried this fraud with Raining Men by signature fraud and now with Black Rock, a company that was initially deregistered in the British Virgin Islands and resuscitated when the Raining Men fraud failed. Both companies have never funded my case,” Makate told the Sunday Times.

Makate wants the Pretoria high court to scrap Elsdon’s alleged entitlement to 40% of his payout due to fraud and misrepresentation.

He argued the company breached the contract from the start because it never had the money to fund the litigation and never did.

He told the Sunday Times that Black Rock’s claim was similar to the failed attempts of Raining Men with Elsdon as the mastermind.

“Black Rock is a perpetuation of the Raining Men fraud that failed. Black Rock is another fraudulent attempt to try and defraud and extort money from me,” Makate said.