Asha Speckman
THE stress of struggling to get compensation from Vodacom for his Please Call Me idea drove him into depression and psychiatrist visits, Nkosana Makate told the South Gauteng High Court yesterday.
Makate instituted legal proceedings against his former employer in 2008. According to Makate’s version, which he presented in court when the trial commenced last week, he presented the concept to his immediate superior, Lazarus Muchenje, in November 2000.
The Please Call Me concept was to allow prepaid users without airtime to enter a code into their cellphone and send an SMS to another user asking them to contact the sender.
The concept was escalated to the product and development team and launched in 2001. Philip Geissler, then head of product development, had in an e-mail promised Makate that he would set up a meeting with the chief executive at the time, Alan Knott-Craig, to negotiate compensation. Makate alleged that while Vodacom proceeded to commercialise his idea, the company later refused to compensate him.
He had not patented the idea because at the time he had no knowledge of patenting laws and processes and he believed in the integrity of senior officials at Vodacom. In 2003 he resigned from the firm after his articles as a junior accountant at Vodacom ended.
In the intervening years he sent correspondence, to which Vodacom replied that it could not meet with him and that his invention had been submitted within the scope of his employment. Makate testified that he was devastated when Geissler told him MTN claimed he had stolen the idea and that MTN would pursue legal action against Vodacom. He was distressed to hear later that Knott-Craig, in his biography, claimed to have invented the product. Makate testified that he had never seen pleadings in which MTN was suing Vodacom.
Makate said he “made various attempts to seek advice” after he left Vodacom. “I saw many lawyers.” He fell into depression and sought help at the Midrand Carstenhof hospital.
But his testimony was ripped apart as Fanie Cilliers, senior counsel for Vodacom, tore into Makate’s curriculum vitae and cited his various achievements to present an image of an intellectually competent person who occupied a seat on an employee representative committee and another forum for trainee accountants.
Cilliers intended to disprove Makate’s earlier statement that he was naive at the time he presented the Please Call Me idea to his superiors and could not have known of patenting laws.
“Out of your own mouth, you can’t really tell your Lordship you were a naive 23-year-old working for Vodacom in 2000 can you?” Cilliers asked Makate.
Cilliers also cited that the representative committee members knew that any issue involving money would require review from the remuneration committee and the company board. He also cited several forums for Makate to raise grievances against Geissler and Knott-Craig, which Makate failed to do during the two years after the product was launched and during which time Makate was still employed by Vodacom.
But Makate replied that his claim was business related and not in the normal course of employee relations. He argued that he felt he could not lay a grievance. “When you get a message from the chief executive saying you are crazy and greedy, that closes the door for any grievance,” Makate said.
The trial continues.