JOHANNESBURG - Billionaire business-man, Mr Robert Gumede caused a stir on Wednesday night when he publicly accused a journalist of the investigative newspaper, Mail & Guardian (M&G) of receiving money from a former business associate of Gumede as payment to shame him in the media.

The saga dates back to 2002 when he bought shares in a company called Applied Card Technologies (ACT) from its founder, Mr Johan Sterenborg, a citizen of the UK.

According to documents provided by Gumede to the media, he bought 26 per cent of ACT’s shares for R30 million at the time. An amount of approximately R25 million was made to Storenborg and he had to retain the money in the company for its operational costs. Eight months later the money, according to Gumede, was missing. Without his knowledge ACT was facing a threat of liquidation from Brait Merchant Bank for failing to honour instalments on short-term loans.

While this process was taking place, Gumede bought the balance of a now almost bankrupt company for a further R5 million. When the liquidation came to light, he withheld R2 million and a long legal battle started between himself and Storenberg.

Gumede claims that to this day Storenberg still owes Guma (his holding company) approximately R45 million but Storenberg left the country a few years ago and investigators on Gumede’s behalf could not trace assets.

Since the debacle started M&G has published a few articles, some focusing on the inquiry that was held into ACT’s financial conduct and management. According to Gumede’s state-ment this week, the publication has for the past eight years been biased and subjective on the matter. It opted to focus on the outstanding R2 million he still owed Storenberg and never once questioned Storenberg’s conduct on selling him a bankrupt business.

After another defamatory article in November 2009, the Press Ombudsman ordered M&G in January this year to publish an apology to Gumede for wrongful reports published on the deal.

According to Gumede the newspaper "doesn’t want to accept the fact that I am not corrupt" and keep on digging for stories to publish. In March 2010 when Gumede married Dr Portia Mkhize in Nelspruit, M&G was not invited, but gained access to the event by "registering under another guest’s access code". The subsequent article published on the wedding was "defamatory", according to Gumede. He says even his recent acquisition of shares in the Golden Lion’s rugby team have lead to positive reaction from all other media houses except for M&G who chose to ignore the event.

The last straw for Gumede came after the newspaper recently approached various former business partners and friends to "dig up dirt" on him. His former wife was also contacted in the process.

In a surprise move he approached the ombudsman before any more stories were to be published, not the normal procedure when laying a complaint. Yesterday M&G reacted strongly to Gumede’s claims and said it was getting legal advice how to deal with claims of "bribery" made against some of the journalists. The newspaper said they were outrageous. "Mr Gumede is seeking to portray our investigation as driven by malice and as a personal vendetta, but it is not.

He launched a personal attack on editor Mr Nic Dawes, Mr Sam Sole and (former M&G investigative journalist) Mr Adriaan Basson, based on unsubstantiated innuendo that he himself purported to decry and which would not meet basic journalistic, never mind legal, standards," said the statement.

M&G stated that the payment to a journalist was for travelling costs and a solid explanation could be given for the copies of the cheques that accompanied Gumede’s statement.

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