From+Kebble+to+Brown,+Barry+Sergeant,+Moneyweb

Moneyweb, 02 March 2007
=From Kebble to Brown=


 * //Are these guys for real, or are we just in one long movie?//**


 * Barry Sergeant**

The man is from a multinational organisation, based near one of central London's landmarks. As a policymaker, his specialty is capital markets, covering everything from stocks to bonds, from commodity futures to bank regulation. He was in Johannesburg this week and was intensely focused on finding out how the story told in my book "Brett Kebble: The Inside Story" could have happened "in everyone's face".

The professor professed astonishment at the story. He found it exasperating, but appeared to have found some relief in chapter 21 of the book, "By the //Cathédrale Notre Dame de la Paix".// The chapter is set in Bukavu, on Lake Kivu, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The professor, you see, was born in the country, in the southern province of Katanga.

He has childhood memories of Bukavu, and appeared to agree that it must be one of the most beautiful small cities in the world. It has a cathedral, all right. The learned professor also enjoyed the chapter for its central character, The Duke, a professional smuggler who was in the business more for fun than anything else.

"I can see that chapter in a movie", the professor smiled.

"If some crazy ever makes a movie out of this story", I replied, "there's only one actor I know who could play Brett Kebble properly. He would have to put on weight, like he did for //Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas// when he played opposite Johnny Depp. You know who I mean?" The professor was looking at the choices of food in the Tradewinds, upstairs at the Hilton on Rivonia Road.

"Benicio Del Toro", I said. "He could play Brett Kebble".

I tried to explain that Del Toro has about the right density and intensity to play the part. Here is an actor gifted with loads of charisma, a guy who can play complex parts. I hear that he wants to be filmed playing Harry Morgan, from Ernest Hemingway's short stories in "To Have and Have Not". The choice of who could play The Duke would not be so tough. Like The Duke, Harry Morgan was a smuggler but where The Duke specialises in gold, Morgan was a gunrunner, a rumrunner and, like The Duke, one tough guy. Sometimes Morgan used to run people, out of Cuba.

The chapter about The Duke was about all the relief the professor could find. He mentioned Enron, which blew up in the final months of 2001. Before you could blink your eyes, it seemed, the US legislature had produced the Sarbanes Oxley laws and regulations.

This goes to the fundamental point that perturbs the professor so deeply and profoundly. The point is that countries must never allow confidence in their capital markets to be undermined. Countries that ignore the situation find that sooner or later, the investors will go elsewhere. It can happen overnight, the professor stressed.

I explained in brief about some of the new scandals, not least Fidentia. I told the professor that this was going to be a relatively easy egg to crack, given the profile of the Fidentia front man, J Arthur Brown. There are a couple of big wheels in the background, all right, Maddock (the potentially mad accountant who lost his proverbial mind), Cruickshank (the deceased strawberry farmer), and one Goodwin (an international man of mystery, currently surrounded by a small army of lawyers).

The way things turned out with Enron, it's clear that some initially unknown names on the outside were central to the scandal. It's turning out something like that with Kebble as well.

"I could tell between the lines", the professor mused, "that you left lots of things out".

"Indeed", I said. "But there will be a time and a place. Anyhow, the story continues. It's all about the cover-ups. The problem for these guys is that every now and again a crumb falls between the cracks. Put it into the right place on the jigsaw, and the picture becomes clearer. Kebble is looking more like a lamb as each day goes by".

The professor frowned. He is deeply concerned about the damage to South Africa's reputation. He is especially worried that South Africa is being held out as a model for other African markets; those, like Botswana, which are trying to get a piece of the capital market action.

"I write the stories", I said to the professor. "I don't have time to find solutions. Writing the stories takes time, and it's a tough enough job".


 * From: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page1655?oid=76327&sn=Detail**

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