Kubus creator punts carbon credits

Adriaan Nieuwoudt dreams up another get-rich-quick scheme aimed at the 'volk', writes Anton Ferreira

The incorrigible Adriaan Nieuwoudt, architect of a series of failed get-rich-quick schemes spanning three decades, is at it again - this time with a plan to cash in on carbon credit trading.

Nieuwoudt, who launches his ambitious projects from his home in the Northern Cape hamlet of Garies, placed adverts in Afrikaans newspapers this month inviting would-be investors to e-mail him or log on to his Facebook site to take advantage of "the chance of a lifetime".

Nieuwoudt says the scheme is open to people of all colours, but his pitch to investors is couched in the language of whites who still hanker after apartheid: "Please see this as a volk's foundation for all our people ... an alternative South Africa driven by the eternal power of the sun and wind of our fatherland."

Those who respond receive an e-mail "invitation to participate" in a company he plans to register, Waste Energy Converters, which will establish wind and solar energy plants in remote parts of the country.

Nieuwoudt says in the e-mail that the first wind farm will be built on a 35km stretch of the Namaqualand coast that he owns.

Institutions such as Eskom will have to buy renewable energy to earn carbon credits so that they can continue to burn coal, he says.

"We are going to establish a big public company in which all our people who grab the chance now will have an interest."

Those who get in now will pay one cent a share, but "anyone who wants to obtain shares later, after we have built up the company, will have to pay a lot".

The e-mail promises "potential contracts" of R30-billion for the company's green energy, but makes no mention of hurdles facing such a scheme, such as the need to sign a power purchase agreement.

Nieuwoudt declined to discuss the project with Business Times this week. "It's not for the press," he said. "It's for the people who belong to it. The press just speculates."

Nieuwoudt first gained notoriety in the '80s with kubus, a yoghurt-like milk culture which he advertised as a miracle ingredient in beauty products.

He sold activator starter packs to thousands of investors, who, in theory, would produce tons of kubus in their homes and sell it back to him.

A court ruled that the scheme was an illegal lottery.

Two years ago Nieuwoudt solicited investments in a tourism "master plan" which envisaged flying foreign visitors to a central hub on the Orange River in the Northern Cape, where they would be safe from muggers and dangerous taxi drivers.

The Department of Trade and Industry shut down that project, saying it appeared to contravene legislation against pyramid schemes.

Other Nieuwoudt projects that have made little apparent headway include an attempt to mine kaolin in the Northern Cape.

In the e-mail promoting his latest scheme, Nieuwoudt said: "In Heaven's name, people, stop the vrot milk stories about kubus. It was a naive effort 26 years ago in which many people did, indeed, make money."