Damn the limousine. She would regain the independence that had been hers in those first few weeks of university before she got into a relationship with Andile. There was more to her life than this. There was more to her than just a housewife and she, Nobantu Makana, would prove it, with or without Andile’s blessing, marriage be damned!
3
MAPAMO Holdings, now advertised as a one hundred per cent BEE company, was named after the first syllables of the last names of founding partners Andile Makana, Anant Patel and Oupa Mokoena. As befitting any company with serious ambitions, they had their offices in the fashionable business hub of Sandton – where all three partners had somehow managed to get themselves spacious corner offices. As he swivelled on his chair, Andile realised that as soon as the company was listed this particular leg of MAPAMO’s journey would come to an end. There would be more people to be accountable to; less responsibility on his shoulders. He recalled how it had all started.
Andile had met Anant at Ackerman & Patel and they had become firm friends. Anant, an only child whose mother had died at an early age, had always spoken of the opportunities on the continent once the sanctions against South Africa were lifted, but his father was not keen to finance what he thought of as a pipe dream. Andile, however, had also seen the opportunities open to those brave enough to dare and wished he had some collateral that could guarantee a worthwhile bank loan to kick-start his and Anant’s dream.
Anant’s father – Uncle Zaheer, as everyone from the cleaners to his partner called him – had been an excellent lawyer and businessman. He had been more aware than most that the glory was in criminal litigation but the money was in company law, and together with a like-minded Jewish gentleman, Emmanuel Ackerman, he had set up Ackerman & Patel. Their company consulted far and wide on all aspects of business – from production companies to television stations, from NGOs to big business. If anyone wanted to know the legality of anything to do with their business, Ackerman & Patel were there to advise and make pots of money in the process. With the political situation in South Africa slowly changing, their name had started appearing on every important merger and acquisition on the continent. In Africa, the best young legal minds, trained by major universities worldwide – from Oxford to UCT, from the Sorbonne to Yale – either worked for, or knew someone who worked at, Ackerman & Patel. Zaheer had hoped that his son would, with his strong business acumen, study law and join the family business, but Anant had been adamant in his refusal, preferring to become his own man and study finance instead. With a little technical advice from his father’s sister, a few good chefs and some funding from a disappointed but supportive father, Anant had started a top-notch halal restaurant in Johannesburg. He had hoped to eventually turn the restaurant into a chain, should profits permit, and his father still refused to give him that big loan that would get him started on greater things. While the restaurant was profitable, Anant always told Andile that he considered the profits chump change compared to what he knew he could achieve if he had more money. Their opportunity had come with the death of Uncle Zaheer five years to the day after the 1994 elections.
Approached by his father’s partner with a business proposal, Anant took the opportunity with both hands. The proposal:
“Listen, dear boy, save for a few coins left to charity, your father left everything to you. What say you sell me, and some interested investors, the half of the company that now belongs to you, because unlike your father, Yahweh bless him, I know you have no interest in this company.”
Anant had asked for the offer of purchase in writing, knowing well what a shrewd lawyer his Uncle Emmanuel was. He might not grossly cheat the son of his partner, but he might put a couple of hundred thousand over him. Anant needed to discuss it with Andile so he could cover all the loopholes, and besides, this could just be the opportunity that would allow the two friends to set up on their own. After consulting with Andile, Anant was able to get a higher price than initially offered as well as a sentimental clause that requested that Uncle Emmanuel keep the Patel on the masthead in memory of Anant’s father.
“Dear boy, did you ever think I would remove it?” Emmanuel had said, finding amusement in the sentimentality of this otherwise level-headed child.
With the papers signed, Andile, now a junior partner, had tendered his resignation eight years after he had first joined Ackerman & Patel, which brought much sorrow from Emmanuel, who was well aware that, of the many young lawyers in his company, here was one young man who was more than simply well-versed in the landscape of the country and its laws.
With Anant’s capital and Andile’s legal brain, it may have looked like they were set, but Andile wasn’t convinced.
“We are going to throw most of this money down the drain if we don’t get another person in,” he had advised.
Anant had been aghast. “For what? We have everything we need.”
“Not quite, my friend. We need connections. Governments and businesses don’t give contracts to nobodies just because they have good legal minds and a bit of money,” he had said pragmatically.
“So, do you have anyone in mind and, if so, what can you tell me about them?” Anant had asked impatiently.
Andile remembered that day. How he had taken his time pouring himself some Johnny Black, knowing full well that he was annoying the hell out of Anant. And then he had told Anant about Oupa Mokoena. Oupa, a fifty-something-year-old former Umkhonto we Sizwe intelligence operative, had done a stint at Robben Island before going into exile. He had great links with both those in power and the exiles. A likeable chap with a penchant for jazz, single malt whiskies and beautiful women, he was working in a senior position in government. Andile had met him at some chisa nyama in Alex and they had formed a mutual admiration society.
After being told of their plan, Oupa – like every ambitious person who “did not fight the apartheid regime to starve” – had resigned from his job and joined the two younger men.
With Anant’s money, Oupa’s connections and Andile’s legal brain, it was not long before MAPAMO Holdings became a well-known name in the world of mining. They had started in the platinum industry, but with South African soldiers eventually being found on Congolese soil, it wasn’t long before they diversified into diamonds and coltan.
Andile figured that if they shut up shop today, all three of them would still have more money than they knew what to do with for the rest of their lives. But with more African countries to be conquered – a Ghanaian guy he had been talking to at one meeting had referred to South Africans as the neocolonialists of the continent – they weren’t going to stop now. They needed more funding and being listed on the JSE would allow them access to the working capital they required for the next big step. Of course, there was no shortage of people interested in investing in MAPAMO, but if anyone had any doubts, they would have seen what a big player he was in the society pages last weekend. Yeah, Nobantu’s party had been a good touch, he thought, nodding his head.
It was almost five-thirty. In another thirty minutes, Andile would meet his partners so that he could break down to each of them just what was due, using the figures he had received from Anant. Sure, he could have asked his secretary to draw up a memo, but he thought it better that they sat down and toasted their good fortune which was, with the listing on the JSE, just about to get better. It was at that moment that his cellphone, the one with a private number, rang.
“Makana speaking,” he answered curtly. He had perfected the art of sounding like a very busy man when answering his phone. It made people get to the point and it scared off telemarketers.
“Yes, sir, this is the principal at —— Convent. Are you the father of Nqobisa Makana?”
The principal was white and had pronounced his daughter’s name as Nikobisa. Andile was impatient with white people who mispronounced black names. They always made such a to-do about black people who were unable to speak good English and yet, four hundred years after they had arrived, they still couldn’t pronounce their fellow countrymen’s names. This is why he had deliberately insisted on his children having names with clicks in them and no middle names. Reconciliation? Then reconcile with my official language as I have reconciled with yours,