Like a Facebook relationship status: the Please Call Me drama is complicated. As part of a series of investigative pieces, in which ITWeb will untangle a story that has become as much about the people as the legal machinations, we have detailed background data on the companies and shifting alliances behind the litigation.
Along the way, directors disappear, people die, companies are deregistered and resurrected, offshore funders emerge, allies become opponents, and almost every answer gives rise to another question.
Nkosana Makate
Makate is best known, and legally acknowledged, as the inventor of the Please Call Me concept and the central figure in what seems to be one of South Africa’s longest-running corporate legal disputes.
He joined Vodacom in 1995 through the company’s accounting training programme directly after matric, his LinkedIn profile shows. While with the cellular giant, he worked his way up to finance manager of the operational expenditure section.
At Vodacom, he conceived the Please Call Me idea, leading to a legal battle based on a contract with one of his superiors that ultimately reached the Constitutional Court and continued for nearly two decades before being confidentially settled in 2025.
Today, Makate works as an accountant at the South African Local Government Association, where he has been for almost 14 years, as the director of its finance control unit.
In what sounds like an American bail hearing, Makate argues in November court papers that he is not a flight risk because he is married and lives in Pretoria. The papers relate to a bid by Black Rock Mining to freeze his payout from Vodacom so it could continue its legal fight to secure the 40% it claims it is entitled to, based on claims of having provided more than R4 million for Makate’s legal costs.
Wilna Lubbe
Wilna Lubbe is Makate’s attorney and is also a notary and managing director of Stemela Lubbe Inc, with more than 30 years’ experience in commercial litigation, trusts and estate administration.
Lubbe’s LinkedIn page shows that she did an LLM − a Master of Laws advanced postgraduate degree − in Environmental Law and Governance at North-West University.
Having previously worked as a prosecutor before moving into private practice, Lubbe has built a career in commercial and fiduciary law. In addition to running her legal practice, she has served as trustee of several large trusts and is a member of the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa, desktop search shows.
Christian Schoeman
Although Christian Schoeman died before the latest litigation unfolded, he remains a key figure in the origins of the Please Call Me funding dispute.
Schoeman was formerly an advocate but was struck from the roll by the then Natal Provincial Division in 1999. He later appears to have pivoted to structuring investments, negotiating settlements and arranging complex commercial transactions, with court judgements from unrelated litigation describing him performing these commercial rather than legal roles.
According to the Please Call Me court papers, Schoeman was the architect of the original funding arrangement that enabled Makate’s case to proceed. He introduced Makate to businessman Elsdon and signed the original 2011 litigation funding agreement on behalf of a company that was still to be nominated.
When he was unable to fund the litigation himself, he brought in investors Elsdon, Tracey Lucille Röscher, Kevin Brian Jenkins, and Schoeman’s ex-wife – who is never named in any of the court papers – offering them equity in the venture, court papers show.
Schoeman also sued Lubbe, Makate and the company Raining Men – seeking to preserve his role in the funding agreement – having at one stage in a 2018 judgement said Raining Men was his company before backtracking and arguing that he alone held the rights under the funding agreement.
Because of this, Judge NB Tuchten in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria found him to be an unreliable witness in the 2018 court case. The former advocate also alleged various conspiracies during his involvement.
It is not clear when Schoeman died, or of what, and questions surrounding some aspects of his role in these matters remain unresolved.
Errol David Elsdon
Elsdon describes himself in various court papers, as well as during a CNBC Africa interview with Bruce Whitfield a decade ago, as a major businessman with interests that include litigation funding.
The man, who portrays himself as the name behind Black Rock Mining, has variously claimed to be a Black Rock director as well as a former director, although he is empowered to act on Black Rock’s behalf.
Other paperwork from the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission lists him as a one-time director of Raining Men, in conjunction with another early funder, Tracey Lucille Röscher – ITWeb details what is known about her below. In his interview with Whitfield, the journalist introduces Elsdon as a director of a company called Sterling Rand.
Tracey Lucille Röscher
Tracey Lucille Röscher can perhaps be described as a bit player with a low public profile, only being cited in court papers surrounding the Please Call Me cases as one of the early funders.
Company records identify her as a director of Raining Men alongside Elsdon. A Google search for “Tracey Lucille Röscher” returns only her directorship in Raining Men. LinkedIn searches returned nothing that provides additional information.
Kevin Brian Jenkins
Kevin Brian Jenkins, an early Please Call Me funder, is a businessman, with company records showing he is listed as the director of various South African companies, including Odyssey Consultancy, Impala Technologies, NumberSecure, SmartIQ, Squirrel Trust Administrators and Ground Control Technology.
While “Kevin Jenkins” is not an uncommon name, the full name “Kevin Brian Jenkins” provides a unique identifier linking the businessman named in company records to the individual identified in the Please Call Me court papers.
Court records outside the Please Call Me litigation show Jenkins involved in unrelated commercial investment transactions and negotiations. Within the Please Call Me litigation, court papers identify him as the person who first introduced Makate to Schoeman, before he disappears from the scene.
The international funders
When Elsdon’s initial apparent investment of R500 000 was exhausted, he claims he and Schoeman approached a Bermuda-based company to raise a total of £250 000 – R3.75 million at the time, although the amount Black Rock claims to have put towards Makate’s litigation fight is stated as R4.39 million.
Elsdon’s approach to Bermuda-based Global Distressed Alpha Fund (GDAF) was in conjunction with Schoeman, via a UK-based lawyer who was later sued by GDAF and associated entities over this funding deal.
In 2013, GDAF − through Global Distressed Alpha Capital (GDAC) − agreed to provide Black Rock with £250 000, split into £100 000 held in trust and £150 000 paid to Black Rock. Elsdon and the since deceased Schoeman signed surety obligations for the loan.
It is some of this money that Makate now alleges Elsdon used for his personal enrichment, transferring £75 000 – or R2.25 million based on the South African Reserve Bank’s historical exchange rate of R15 to UK Sterling – into related Cyprus-based entities. Elsdon has indicated he will sue over such defamation claims.
There are linkages within linkages around both the fund and GDAC. Paradise Papers indicate that another company, Global Distressed Alpha Fund Management (GDAFM), is owned by GDAF. Based on various court papers and desktop research, GDAFM appears to have managed the fund, while GDAC was its general partner.
The Paradise Papers database is an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists project, with some of the information coming from the Panama Papers — a 2016 data leak of 11.5 million confidential documents exposing how wealthy individuals, politicians and business leaders use anonymous offshore shell companies to hide wealth, evade taxes and bypass financial regulations.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists states that inclusion in the database does not imply wrongdoing and that offshore entities are frequently used for legitimate commercial purposes.
The fund later liquidated GDAFM, although it was also a plaintiff in a lawsuit against both Elsdon and Schoeman, as well as the lawyer who made the initial introductions.
However, 2018 court papers make the point that an entity called Simba – acting on behalf of GDAF – lent the money. Simba Capital VIII, registered in Luxembourg, has little public corporate profile.
* Read the first instalment of the series here.
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