I don't understand why Dewani gave a stranger from a slum money for a helicopter trip. Just like in this country, the normal way to organise this is to phone the helicopter company, book the trip and give them your credit card number over the phone - they do work in South Africa you know! I recall 5 star hotels will also sometimes have a selection of trips organised which the Reception Desk will book for you and then the trip appears on your bill at the end of your stay.
Referring to my previous post about dishonesty in South Africa I can tell you from bitter experience if you give an ordinary person a large sum of money they will just vanish with it. You would not give the taxi driver the money for the helicopter trip: the unlicensed taxi driver from a slum where there aren't even proper street addresses would just vanish and you would never see him or your money again.
I've done the helicopter trip: the taxi would take you to the launch site close by the Waterfront (I went in my own car). He would wait, because he also wants the fare to take you back (or in my case if using a taxi I usually negotiated a set fee for them to be at my beck and call all day: petrol is cheap in SA and so are taxis). You walk into the small office of the helicopter tour company by the helipad and either pay them cash or with your credit card if you didn't earlier then you go up in the helicopter. In South Africa, you avoid giving middle men the money because it doesn't get to its destination.
It is also highly unusual for someone like a lowly taxi driver, let alone an unlicensed one, to enter a 5 star hotel. I would expect him to get grief from the security guard at the front door, whose job it is to keep people like him out. Unfortunately with such a wealth divide, and the legacy of an apartheid upbringing, I'd expect someone of his age and background to be extremely ill-at-ease entering anywhere beyond the foyer, knowing they are completely out of place and might be in serious trouble for being there (I have seen some appalling public taking-downs by white management in SA, who play to the gallery for what they expect the white paying customer wants). In my experience as a former employer and a tourist there, I'd expect someone from such a humble background to be so out of his depth he would decline to go beyond the lobby, be fiddling with his hat and looking around nervously and certainly not sit down on a sofa and make himself comfortable.
I know none of this is specific, I'm just highlighting once again, how extraordinarily out of the ordinary everything about this case is to someone who knows what is customary. I had periods where I lived in various 5 star hotels in South Africa for months and I had the experience, as a foreigner, of observing how different their social hierarchy and interaction was to the UK. Until about 15 years ago it was illegal for this man to look a white person in the eye - that was very hard to change in older members of the workforce brought up under apartheid: they're still very respectful and hierarchical, call you 'bass' and 'madam' and 'menir'. I found this episode very odd too.
As for the lying: when they are caught out its like dealing with little children - they just say the most stupid, easily disproved lies, anything they can think of. My husband and I employed about 200 people at one point: as an employer you become part of their clan, they bring all their problems to you - their marriage problems, they're in jail for hitting someone after getting drunk, a mass brawl over a brother-in-law not repaying money, pistol-whipping someone who stole from their aunt's business - we even had an employee take money to finance setting her girlfriend up in a brothel - even the witnesses tell little lies because they don't want to disclose some little scheme they were running on the side. That's not even the lies they tell for stealing from you even though you just gave them a payrise, stood them bail and lent them money because they accidentally drank it all. They all tell a web of stupid, easily disproved lies. It's a cultural thing.
