Timeline of Makate’s legal tussle with Vodacom:

• In 2001, Vodacom introduced “Please Call Me”, a service that allows you to send free messages to other mobile users, requesting them to call you back even when you have insufficient airtime. Makate had conceived the idea in 2000 while working for Vodacom as a junior accountant. The company committed he would be given 5% of the proceeds of the revenue should the creation prove to be a success.

• Seeing that nothing was forthcoming, in 2007 Makate wrote several correspondences to his superiors, requesting to be given a fair share of the deal. His pleas were answered up to a point that he decided to take the matter to court in 2008.

• After five years on the court roll, the case was heard in the Johannesburg High Court in 2013.

• Makate was dealt a heavy blow when in July 2014 the court dismissed his case with costs. He later appealed at the Johannesburg High Court, but there too he wasn’t successful. He further took the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal, and he was also rejected.

• In April 2016, he was given a lifeline when the Constitutional Court ruled in his favour, saying the network provider should honour the agreement it had signed with Makate in 2000. The Concourt ordered that Vodacom should negotiate with Makate and arrive at a fair and just compensation. In a scathing judgment, the apex court said Vodacom was unethical in its conduct and had negotiated in bad faith with Makate.

• In January 2019, Vodacom said it had struck a deal with Makate regarding compensation and that the matter was sealed, but Makate denied this claim.

• On February 7 2022, the Pretoria High Court ordered that Vodacom’s CEO, Shameel Joosub, recalculate the R47-million offer as part of compensating Makate, saying it was too little.