Refund refused

The company was previously going by the name 500concepts . A consultant manager by the name Mashile H. Phasha was supposed to be doing my business plan, I paid R8800(eight thousand eight hundred Rands) for a deposit of R17,600(seventeen thousand six hundred Rands. )then covid disturbed the process, but after covid I could not continue because of shortage funds .I then contacted Mr Phasha to inform him that I no longer have the funds to continue and that we should cancel and refund my money. He told it cannot be done because a lot of work have been done already, I left it . Until this year in June when he contacted me and ask me to send my banking details saying that they are moving to another company, which is the intergrated Equilibrium. I did my follow-up every month to find out how far wit the process which he kept promising, until on the 3rd month when he got irritated and stopped replying to my follow-ups I emailed the new company they moved to and he got the message from David, I don't know his position in the company but Phasha called me on the day I sent the email to tell me that he got an email from a friend of his named David about my complaint. He also said I might have made a big mistake by sending that email because I might not get my refund anymore because he can lie and say I did a job for him on the side(off the books )but I must wait for them to call and then we'll take it from there ,they have not called till today and it's been 2 weeks now. I did a follow-up again last week but there is still nothing done. Please help