Angelique Serrao
JOHANNESBURG: It has been a 15-year legal battle to try to get Vodacom to remunerate Kenneth Makate for his “Please Call Me” idea – one which has now landed up in the highest court in the land.
Smiling and confident, Makate is determined he will succeed in this final round. Even he admits, though, that after such a long fight, his energy levels are flagging.
Yesterday, the Constitutional Court heard Makate’s application to appeal a high court order which dismissed his case, although the court found he had indeed entered into an oral agreement with Phillip Geissler, Vodacom’s then-head of product development, in 2001 that if his idea was commercially viable, he would be paid.
The concept made Vodacom billions of rand in revenue and Makate was paid nothing.
The high court found that Geissler had not had the authority to make the contractual agreement on behalf of Vodacom, and Makate had waited too long to make his claim.
The Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed Makate’s application to appeal because his case did not have reasonable prospects of success.
In 2001, Makate was a trainee accountant when he conceived the “Please Call Me” idea because his girlfriend lived far away and often did not have airtime to call him.
Makate took his idea to Geissler and he was credited for the idea in a company newsletter, but Makate’s legal team said that Vodacom accused Makate of stealing the idea from MTN, that he was too greedy and that then-Vodacom chief executive Alan Knott-Craig had claimed the idea was his own.
Vodacom’s senior counsel, Fanie Cilliers, argued that it was true that Makate had the idea, but his contribution was small because MTN had separately come up with the same idea. He also argued that if the person who made the contractual agreement – Geissler – had no authority to do so, then the company could not be held responsible.
Cilliers came in for a grilling from the Constitutional Court judges. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng asked how it was possible that a man had come up with a product which generated billions for Vodacom, yet he must get nothing for it?
Cilliers said companies cannot be held responsible for the promises senior officials make, it cannot be made into law and if it was, it could upset commerce considerably.
“I think I will reign,” Makate said yesterday.” I have never doubted (that) I had a flippin’ good idea.”
Judgment was reserved.