Break my Rules and you’re out! Jack Lundin investigates the draconian power that John Goring wields in the R2-billion fire sprinkler industry

If you don’t like his rules and his industry, “get the fuck out of it!” That’s how John Goring banished Gauteng fire consultancy EMH Fire Solutions from The List. EMH Fire claims that last October’s expulsion has cost them R5 million in lost business.

That’s what happens when you fall foul of Goring, lanky managing director, sole director and 100% stockholder of the Automatic Sprinkler Inspection Bureau (Pty) (Asib). At the latest count there were 137 names on Asib’s membership roll which  makes up The List – trade companies that are installers, suppliers, consultants and designers of sprinkler systems.

The List is kept up-to-date on Asib’s website and those who break Goring’s Rules are off it before they can blink.

A transgender sex worker, Gita November, has wrought a quiet but glamorous revolution in the conservative West Coast town of Vredenburg – and, six months ago, became an outspoken and respected ward secretary of the local town council.

They knew she was the right person for the job, but when Gita November’s employers transferred her to take up a key position in HIV-prevention in the West Coast town of Vredenburg, they were somewhat anxious for her safety. Little could they have known that within a couple of months she would completely shift the attitudes of the town’s numerous sex workers towards HIV/Aids. Or that she’d involve herself in all aspects of the community in which she’s now an admired and respected ward council member.

Prominent Joburg lawyer was “accessory to perjury” in R750 000 court action.

Was the R295,000 paid by vehicle tracking supplier GlobalTrack to its chief operating officer Hein van Spaendonck an advance on his annual bonus – or was it a loan? That’s the question detectives in the fraud investigation unit at Pretoria Central Police Station are mulling over as they consider Cases No. 249/3/20 and 251/3/20.

At stake is not only the reputation of a partner of a top law firm, but more than R5 million that Van Spaendonck claims he is due by his former employer. So, let’s follow the money trail.

Ace Insurance dodges fire claim for nine months

Insurance companies are known, when faced with a large claim, to pull every trick in the book to  avoid paying out, or to pay as little as possible. But one company met their unlikely match in eccentric Belgian electronics whizz Jacques Botte, who eventually managed to get paid out – with the help of public loss adjuster Stuart Woodhead.

Deploying their loss adjuster and quantity surveyor to pore over the details of the claim, Ace began prevaricating and set out to prove that Botte was the arsonist of his own building. Meanwhile, a cost estimate of repairs to the building, compiled by loss adjuster at Cunningham Lindsey, Gys van der Laak, totalled the princely sum of R2.1 million.

Billions written off as “impairments”, while executives paid like royalty.

From time to time, material pops up in the mainstream and corporate media mentioning financial entities which play a special role in the economy, such as the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), and the Financial Services Board (FSB).

Rarely, however, is attention paid to the entities themselves, with the PIC ranking as the main possible exception. This is not surprising, given that it controls and manages funds of more than R1.6 trillion, mainly on behalf of government employees, retired or currently employed. The PIC ranks as the biggest single investment fund in Africa; by definition, it has clout.

Funds belonging to government employees are vulnerable to risky investments.

The PIC (Public Investment Corporation) has little to prove, with – by its own reckoning – at least R1.6 trillion worth of assets under its management. This entity, wholly owned by the South African government, manages funds belonging not to the government, but to government employees. By definition, this means that, like Fort Knox, the PIC is vulnerable.

Can people other than the owners get to the loot? Watch this space.

If you thought the report (in nose185) about Elon Musk’s Tesla batteries storing solar or wind power to provide electricity for your home when Eskom implodes was a curious sideline to the great energy debate, think again.

Inhabitat.com has reported that batteries to power your motor vehicle and home are the next big project on the agenda of the world’s biggest and richest company, Apple.

Do capsules of ginseng, valerian root and St John’s wort contain herbal remedies – or just about anything but their stated ingredients? From the website Inhabitat.com, Noseweek has learnt that the New York State Attorney General’s office last month demanded that four well-known American retail chains – two of which also trade in South Africa – remove a number of “own-brand” herbal supplements from their shelves, after the pills were found to be packed with a “strange array of fraudulent, and in some cases hazardous, ingredients”.

BuzzFeed news posted a world “exclusive”: a political interview with Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop, who answered all the questions in cutesy emoticons from her pink-covered smartphone. For example: Australia’s relationship with its role model, the USA, got three emojis: a tick, a thumbs-up and a smiley face. Indonesia got the same two initial positives and a “pensive face” – not surprising, since it was on the brink of executing by firing squad two Australian ringleaders of the “Bali Nine”, drug smugglers – Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.