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Satirical Cartoons

What do we get?

As you read this, corporate advisers are preparing strategic options for Life Healthcare, in the wake of 22% shareholder Mvelaphanda announcing last September that it was realising and unbundling its assets. One option, say market sources, is a listing on the JSE, as early as May. Another is that 21.9% shareholder Brimstone Investment might snap up Mvela’s stake, valued at around R1.6bn.

Life Healthcare Group is currently valued at around R7.4bn. Brimstone and Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvela were the leaders in a BEE consortium that acquired the group. Their mission is simply to boost the bottom line.

But who will rush to buy Life Healthcare Group shares after reading this?

Shortly after 78-year old sailor Gordon Webb died on the operating table at Panorama Medi-Clinic (nose118), and cardiac surgeon Dr JJ de Wet Lubbe tearfully told Gordon’s widow Jenifer that he had “nicked the mammary artery”.

Jenifer Webb appointed medico-legal attorneys Millers to sue for damages, but the medical insurer, Medical Protection Society, would have none of it

Why did the state’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC) shell out R140m of Government Employees’ Pension Fund money for an asset valued just months earlier by its owners at only R31.6m?

And where did the lolly end up?

Martin Ettin and Derek Greenberg, both 62, make a formidable partnership. Greenberg is the numbers man and Ettin is the deal-maker.

When noseweek met with them we got some answers – albeit along with a load of schmooze.

Stories about useless lawyers in a useless system, taking care of their own are old hat. So here’s one that adds an ingredient – a useless parastatal organisation that cost a Cape Town boat owner a whopping R2 million.

Gary Mills writes to the Cape Law Society: "I have lost all faith in our legal system and your only advice is that I should approach an attorney for legal advice."

Gerda makes some serious allegations. For starters, she claims that Dr Percy Miller messed up a spinal operation that he performed on her at Bedford Gardens Hospital, on 9 January 2008, in that he incorrectly positioned a screw. As a result of this error, she says, he had to perform a second operation on 19 January 2008.

Gerda claims that she was in so much pain after the second operation that she had to admit herself to the Netcare Milpark Hospital, where a doctor told her that she was a “piece of scrap” and that he couldn’t help her, and that she should go back to Dr Miller and demand that he “correct his mess”.

The National Credit Act of 2005 changed the financing landscape quite dramatically – credit suppliers were suddenly required to act with a modicum of responsibility, and treat their victims, sorry, customers, with an iota of respect.

Two sisters missed their first few bond payments, then got a tenant and when they found out the tenant wasn't paying they went to the bank. To their horror they found out their house had been sold.

Nedbank "manager", Lutchmana Pillay, said it was his duty to look after Zelda and Ronelle, but as there was no response to the notice Nedbank was entitled to sue.

Ever been clubbing at Decodance, Cape Town’s club for older rockers  who like their music more Led Zeppelin than Lady Gaga? The club at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, where that wonderful organic market takes place each Saturday?

Owner, Stephen Leith, believes Nick Ferguson and Jody Aufrichtig want him out so they can develop the part of the building he now occupies.

It falls to noseweek to record yet another bad day at the office for Investec Bank's collections department.

Well, not quite: in fact it was the alert Grahamstown correspondent of the Despatch newspaper in East London who last month reported that one of the companies in Sandton property developer Zunaid Moti’s Abalengani group has been ordered into provisional liquidation by the Grahamstown High Court.

Back in March 2009, councillor Ian Neilson (currently City of Cape Town Deputy Mayor), then chairperson for the powerful Mayoral Committee for Finance, Economic & Social Development, told noseweek to forget it when we asked to see the lease agreement that had handed a prime Gordon’s Bay property to Alexander Acavalos’ Ocean Diners cc (nose114).

Len Ashton reviews Resident Alien by Rian Malan (Jonathan Ball Publishers).

We must cherish Rian Malan. Just as the bien pensants subside into semi-comatose acceptance of South Africa’s bewildering contemporary contradictions, the author of My Traitor’s Heart shuffles back onstage to scour the mind and heart with an enormously energising selection of creative journalistic observation in Resident Alien.

Who needs to visit the big city, or be a dedicated nosehound, to catch the whiff of a juicy fraud? Right here, hidden away in this narrow country life, scribbling away for my small-town rag, fraud stories come my way. I'm talking about defrauding intestate estates. A truly big problem in local black society.

The most shocking aspect of all is that faked lobola certificates are often backed up by various members of the deceased’s own family, who give testimony to the intestate estate administrator at the magistrate’s court, verifying the certificate’s legitimacy.