Vodacom must reimburse Makate fairly

IN HIS autobiography, titled Second is Nothing, disgraced former Vodacom chief executive Alan Knott-Craig infamously claims that he came up with the idea of the network provider’s Please Call Me service while having a deep conversation with a fellow staff member on the balcony of the company’s head quarters in Midrand, Johannesburg.

The autobiography describes how he came up with the service: “Alan was leaning over the railing of the Vodacom building chatting to a colleague, Phil Geissler, when Phil pointed out one security guard trying to attract another’s attention, and because his buddy didn’t see him, the security guard called him on his cellphone. Alan immediately spoke to Leon about creating a Please Call Me service.”

Fast-forward to 2019, and many court cases later, Knott-Craig was found to have lied about how the service was created. The Please Call Me service has generated billions of rands in revenue for Vodacom. In 2009 alone, when Second is Nothing first hit the shelves at Exclusive Books, Vodacom had generated 20 million Please Call Me requests.

This number has since almost doubled in 2019. Knott-Craig’s version of events was tested and proven to be fabricated in 2008 when the case was first heard at the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.

The significance of this is that a former CEO of one of the biggest companies in South Africa had lied and taken credit for a concept that was created by a black employee who did not have access to a patent office nor a fraction of the war chest and resources that Knott-Craig had in his disposal.

The Please Call Me saga is yet another sad example of the respect corporate South Africa has towards black excellence. It points to the grim reality of racial ignorance and prejudiced views black individuals constantly have to contend with in the workplace.

It would perhaps be opportune to consider if it was possible for KnottCraig to come up with the concept. This is the same person whose life has been embedded in white privilege. How is it that he could have conceptualised an idea that reflects the lifestyle of so many people who do not form part of his social status or class?

The Makate and Vodacom saga has presented an unfortunate revelation of how the marketing and advertising industry in South Africa operates where plenty of black employees create brilliant ideas only for them to be usurped by white executives who in turn run with those ideas, pitching to clients and customers as though they were their own.

Makate’s story of how he came up with the service is powerful. It is premised on a love story – how two people who struggled to communicate, in a country still experiencing the negative impact of the migrant labour system because of the over concentration of jobs in major cities and urban areas, were intent to keep their relationship going. As is the reality of many black employees, Makate was seemingly grossly underpaid and could not afford to buy airtime every day to call his significant other.

The lessons learned with this case reinforce the assertion that bosses like Knott-Craig need to be sanctioned appropriately for misleading investors and their customers, especially if he received performance bonuses for implementing Makate’s idea.

Vodacom generates revenues by placing adverts on the Please Call Me messages.

Given that 38 million people are using the service, it is no secret that the company has made millions out of the concept.

Therefore, the network has to do the right thing and pay Makate fairly.