Court Finds Vodacom Must Offer More than R47 Million to “Please Call Me” Inventor Nkosana Makate

The Pretoria High Court has ruled that Vodacom must offer and recalculate a fair compensation to Nkosana Makate for his invention of the Please Call Me (PCM).

The Sowetan reports that Judge Wendy Hughes gave Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub one month to make a new determination of appropriate compensation for voice call revenue generated from PCM.

The ruling on Monday comes after Makate hauled Vodacom back to court after he rejected the cellphone giant’s compensation offer of R47 million which was made in 2019.

In her 42-page judgment, Judge Hughes ruled that “the determination (R47m) by the CEO is referred back to Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub who is obliged to make a fresh determination with the directive that Makate is entitled to be paid 5% of the total voice revenue generated from the PCM product from March 2001 to March 2021.

“That total voice revenue includes Please Call Me revenue derived from prepaid, contract (both in bundle and out bundle) and interconnect (MTR) fees as set out in the Second Respondent’s annual financial statements.”

The judgment also stated that Makate was also entitled to “the time value of money calculated at 5% for each successive year” that Vodacom owes him.

Makate had previously stated that he believed he was owed around R20 billion by Vodacom for his successful Please Call Me invention.