Nkosana Kenneth Makate has once again rebuffed Vodacom’s settlement offering, and the long and drawn court case looks to finally be in the home stretch.

Last week, Makate filed papers in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where he is challenging the R47 million Vodacom offered him.

Yeah, R47 million.

Here’s the thing – Makate’s legal team reckons that isn’t even close to the figure he should be owed, with TimesLIVE reporting below:

As per a Constitutional Court order that the parties negotiate a reasonable compensation arrangement, Makate’s team has done its homework and determined that R10.25 billion (including interest) was owed to their client.

Makate is challenging the R47m which Vodacom offered him for the idea. The amount was determined by group CEO Shameel Joosub.

Makate wants 5% of the total revenue – which his legal team calculated to be R205bn – Vodacom generated from Please Call Me, with interest, from March 2001.

Makate said in his court application he will also seek a common law order to be implemented so there will be rules guiding negotiation processes in future.

He’s fighting an uphill battle to get that R10,25 billion, because the most Vodacom has thus far paid for an idea that has helped the company is closer to R500 000.

Makate says nobody should ever have to go through what he has been through, and battling the legal might of a huge company like Vodacom has taken its toll on him.

So what would the married father of three daughters, who works as an accountant with the South African Local Government Association, do with the money?

“I don’t have plans with the money as such, but there are many projects I’ve thought about venturing into. But if the court rules in favour of Vodacom, it will be the end of the road for me on this matter and I will take the amount the court decides on,” Makate told TimesLIVE on Monday.

Whilst it may seem like R47 million would be enough to hang up his accounting boots, litigation funder Chris Schoeman has had plenty to say about that in the past, when the figure was believed to be R49 million.

Schoeman, who says he met Makate in 2011, and helped fund Makate’s legal battle against Vodacom, reckons the ‘Please Call Me’ inventor has dug himself a bit of a financial hole:

The reason why Makate is not accepting the offer is because he is technically “bankrupt” and owes many people a lot of money.

Schoeman said that after Makate won his Constitutional Court battle against Vodacom, he went on a “spending spree” and people were throwing money at him.

This has left him in serious debt, said Schoeman.

Who knows what settlement Makate will end up walking away with, but for his sake, I hope it’s enough to at least settle his bills and put his feet up for a while.

[source:timeslive]