Politically connected businessman and executive chairman of JSE-listed technology services company Gijima, Robert Gumede, has threatened to sue the Sunday Independent for R1bn, according to a report in sister newspaper the Saturday Star at the weekend. According to the Saturday Star, the threatened claim may be the biggest in South African history.
The alleged threat follows publication by the Sunday Independent of a front-page news story claiming that Gijima was being investigated under an order authorised by president Jacob Zuma.
Gumede, who is often described in the media as an ANC benefactor, claimed in a letter to the Sunday Independent that its article was defamatory and the headline sensational, causing him “serious commercial and reputational damage”, according to the Saturday Star.
“The lawyers have been instructed to institute legal proceedings against Independent News and Media South Africa; the executive chairman, Dr Iqbal Survé; the group executive editor, Karima Brown, journalist Mogomotsi Magome; and the acting editor of the Sunday Independent, Japhet Ncube,” the newspaper said.
“Our clients intend instituting legal proceedings for a civil claim against the aforementioned parties for defamation which claim may very well be the largest defamation claim in ever pursued in South Africa,” it quoted Gumede’s lawyers, who it didn’t name, as saying in letter.
The Sunday Independent article that has got Gumede hot under the collar said that Zuma has signed a proclamation for the Special Investigating Unit to probe a R360m tender awarded by the department of rural development & land reform to Gijima. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media