Absa is up to its old tricks -- again.

Cobus Potgieter probably won’t be the last person to be taken to the cleaners by Absa. But he’s one of the few with the balls to fight back.

He persuaded Absa to provide a loan for the development of 740 plots. To limit Absa’s exposure, he would first have to secure pre-sales of at least R30m, but Absa’s alteration of this figure to R58m led to the collapse of the deal, and subsequently to Absa suing Potgieter.

He could have bought a yacht. Or a racehorse or two. Or sent his money overseas. But KZN businessman Iain Buchan thought he’d get more satisfaction from spending R2,25m preserving a bit of natural heritage.

Little did he know.

Buchan inherited a tenant with the property: the giant paper conglomerate Mondi Shanduka, a subsidiary of Anglo American, but their 18-year lease was due to expire at the end of 2007 and when it did they handed over a KZN estate with extensive erosion, clogged drainage ditches and overgrown by alien weeds.

How Nedbank bought its HQ building from the company's pension fund for a fraction of its true value.

Nedbank Group plundered a R100m asset from its own pensioners when it sold, to itself, one of its head office sites for a knockdown R5m. Such is the claim of former Nedbank internal auditor – and now self-appointed pensioner watchdog – Tatchell Venn.

Venn, 64, left Nedbank, on voluntary retrenchment, after working for the bank for 41 years – the last 17 as senior internal auditor and he is as busy as ever, burrowing into the internal affairs of his pension fund.

Three years into a promising legal career, Mia McDonald allegedly hired a hitman to murder two revenue officials who were due to testify against her in a corruption case.

McDonald, now 34, was called to the Pretoria bar at the unusually young age of 23. But barely three years into what could have been a glittering career, she (allegedly) tried to bribe a revenue official on behalf of a client with a tax problem – and then, when trapped, attempted to hire a hitman to murder the two revenue service officials due to testify against her in the ensuing corruption case.

When your boss shags your wife, is that an unfair labour practice and tantamount to constructive dismissal?

What's up at Afgri Ltd?

The unexpected resignation of its managing director Jeff Wright, has revealed that they have also agreed to pay him a R6m retrenchment package, which includes cash and shares (and nearly R500 000 in leave pay, despite the fact that he has spent much of the past three months at his holiday home in Plett).

Yes, but that’s only the half of it.

The doctor is disturbed by how many South Africans use bogus slimming products, many of which have been discredited.

From vehicles that wouldn’t be allowed near any autostrada, to “health products” banned in the countries that produce them, South Africa has long been a dumping ground for stuff no-one else wants. Yes, suspect goods continue to pour into stores near you.

And despite plenty of talk no one in authority seems to be doing much about it. But then there is Harris Steinman – a kind of public watchdog for the health of the nation. But these days even Steinman feels he’s simply pissing against the wind.

The answer to the problem is simple: pay the top players more, says Robert van der Valk

BOOK REVIEW BY MARK THOMAS

No journalist with any decency can read this work without at times feeling anger and personal shame.

When multi-award-winning British journalist Nick Davies decided to investigate the state of his own profession he had only an inkling of how bad things had become in the news industry.

The result of his meticulous investigation is Flat Earth News – a shocking exposé of how far from the facts much contemporary news reporting strays. 

A 650kg consignment of US dollars from Harare washed up at OR Tambo airport. Who was its sender and what was its ultimate destination? 

It is now widely known that before the Zimbabwe general election earlier this year, container loads of newly printed, near worthless Zimbabwe dollars were arriving in South African ports from Germany for trans-shipment to the Zim Reserve Bank in Harare. 

Less well-known is the fact that at about the same time consignments of foreign hard currency were being flown out of Zimbabwe.

Is it or is it not? True or photoshopped? A line of trucks waiting outside the Kriel Power Station not able to get in because the 'sign-in' book at the entrance gate was full...