The Please Call Me millions: The mystery funder

By Nicola Mawson, Contributing journalist

Johannesburg, 08 Sept 2026

The Please Call Me case went through four courts before eventually being settled. (Image made with GenAI)

Businessman and litigation funder Kevin Brian Jenkins was one of an early team who put R750 000 towards helping inventor Nkosana Makate fight Vodacom for a stake of its Please Call Me profits.

Jenkins, who until recently worked with Makate’s lawyer, Wilna Lubbe of Stemela Lubbe, appears repeatedly alongside the same circle of early funders over the following 20 years – detailed by ITWeb in The cast of characters.

In 2019, the now deceased and former advocate Christiaan Schoeman told an arbitration hearing that Jenkins introduced him to Makate and was part of helping raise R750 000 alongside himself, Schoeman’s ex-wife Wilma Schoeman, Black Rock Mining representative Errol Elsdon and Tracey Roscher for Makate.

Paper trail

A 2018 claim filed in London saw Black Rock’s apparent Bermuda funders quote an e-mail Elsdon sent their lawyer, Walton Eddlestone: “The case was brought to us by Kevin Jenkins. You may recall that he brought us a number of matters previously.”

(The matter against Eddlestone, which appears to have gone nowhere, is detailed in The Bermuda Triangle – and there’s more to come from that relationship.)

A 2016 Mail & Guardian article offers another glimpse of the group – a photograph caption names Jenkins as a funder alongside Makate, Lubbe and senior counsel Cedric Puckrin, who acted for Makate for years, including after a heart attack, plus an unidentified colleague.

Please Call Me funder Kevin Jenkins is named in several cases. (Graphic by Nicola Mawson)

Jenkins and Puckrin also appear together in a 2016 High Court judgement – Odyssey Consultancy v Hurwitz – in which Jenkins’s company, Odyssey, sued businessman Dale Hurwitz over an unpaid debt.

The court heard that Jenkins used Puckrin’s “name and reputation (and stature as a senior counsel)” to get the defaulting Hurwitz to pay – both on monthly payments and on defaulting capital repayments. Judge Ranchod found this “does not amount to the fraudulent misrepresentation” Hurwitz alleged.

Hurwitz also claimed he had been misled into signing an acknowledgement of debt, alleging Schoeman had befriended him without disclosing he was acting for Odyssey – a claim Schoeman denied and Hurwitz later abandoned. Ranchod ruled in Odyssey’s favour and ordered Hurwitz to pay the debt.

And a church

In addition, both Puckrin and Jenkins are directors of Springgrove Interdenominational Church, a non-profit company registered on 2 July 2025, alongside Gert Pieter Daniel Lubbe. Companies and Intellectual Property (CIPC) records list all three as active directors.

Another business relationship is found in Festinamus Vervoerdienste, with Jenkins becoming a member, joining Lubbe, on 5 December 2023. However, CIPC records show Jenkins resigned from Festinamus on 18 August, a few days before ITWeb asked Lubbe about her business relationship with Jenkins.

Lubbe’s response to the question “how long have you and Jenkins been business associates, and how did that relationship begin?” was that “Jenkins was a client of the firm”.

Both Lubbe and Jenkins also had stakes in Squirrel Trust Administrators (STA), where Jenkins was co-director alongside James Davison until a substantial falling out in 2017. Jenkins sued Davison, claiming he had misappropriated funds for his own personal benefit and demanded access to financial documents.

The interlinked relationship between Jenkins, Lubbe and Puckrin. (Image created by GenAI)

Judge Pretorius states “there is an irretrievable break-down between the applicant and the first respondent”, while also noting “the trust between the directors of the company… and the first respondent is non-existent”.

Jenkins was successful in an urgent interdict to stop Davison from withdrawing any more money from STA’s accounts, while Pretorius also ordered an independent chartered accountant nominated by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants to conduct a forensic investigation into STA’s financial affairs, which was insolvent by 2018.

Judge Pretorius records Davison, Jenkins, Lubbe, disgraced lawyer Milile Mpambaniso and advocate Xola Stemela all holding equal shares in STA. Stemela, formerly with Stemela Lubbe, is currently a board member of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).

Seized investment

Another Squirrel court case sheds further light on the interlinked relationships. A 2026 ruling records that Mpambaniso instructed Davison, then acting for Squirrel Benefit Administrators (SBA), to invest about R2.7 million on his behalf, inferring this happened at the end of 2014 or start of 2015.

Mpambaniso was investing money seized, then returned, by the National Prosecuting Authority in a fraud case against him, which had been transferred from Stemela Lubbe to SBA, with Stemela Lubbe dealing with “some of my personal matters”.

In June 2016, Mpambaniso was struck from the roll of attorneys after the Law Society successfully argued that his 28 fraud convictions and repeatedly excessive billing of clients showed he was not a fit and proper person to continue practising; subsequently losing a bid to appeal the ruling.

Advocate Xola Stemela, formerly with Stemela Lubbe, held a 20% share in a company alongside Lubbe and Jenkins. (Photograph: RTMC, with adjusted background)

Davison testified that Mpambaniso’s SBA investment was moved to STA on auditors’ advice to separate the administration of trust funds. SBA had ceased trading by the time of the 2024 trial, and CIPC records show Jenkins had resigned from SBA in 2024.

Ultimately, Mpambaniso lost his bid to hold Davison liable because he failed to prove that Davison was personally responsible for his money, Supreme Court of Appeal judge Ntlama-Makhanya ruled.

Hands and an umbrella

SBA, which administered trusts for those who had won damages claims, particularly Road Accident Fund cases, was by then administering beneficiary payments for the Living Hands Umbrella Trust (LHUT), having been appointed in 2013.

Fidentia mastermind J Arthur Brown was ultimately convicted on two counts of fraud involving nearly R300 million, with R93 million related to the Living Hands Trust, and convicted for an effective 15 years in prison in 2014. Fidentia’s FD, Graham Maddock, entered a plea agreement and received an effective seven-year sentence.

Lubbe, a LHUT trustee as of February 2011, tells ITWeb that SBA “provided services to the Living Hands Trust until 2017, when the contract lapsed”. The LHUT website still lists SBA as the appointed administrator; a 16 July 2018 notice on the site tells beneficiaries who haven’t received payments to e-mail paperwork to ‘claims@squirrelba.co.za’.

“The Living Hands Trust paid millions of rands to traced and verified beneficiaries in terms of a formula endorsed by the court,” says Lubbe.

ITWeb unsuccessfully tried to find contact details for Jenkins, with Lubbe telling us she was “not at liberty to provide his details”.

* The penultimate episode in this drama uncovers further links between the Please Call Me matter and LHUT, including yet another massive court case along the way.