Former ANC heavyweight Penuell Maduna in legal battle with ex-wife over multimillion-rand BEE deal

Former cabinet minister Penuell Maduna's bid to claim his share of the lucrative BEE gravy train has been derailed - by none other than his former wife.

The former minerals and energy and justice minister is embroiled in a legal battle to stop the millions he is owed from a broad-based BEE deal with petrochemicals giant Sasol from ending up in the hands of his ex-wife, Nompumelelo Maduna.

He clinched the Sasol deal just two years after leaving the cabinet in 2004.

The 64-year-old had been a senior member of the ANC in exile and served in the Mandela and Mbeki cabinets.

Maduna - who is now vice-chairman at law firm Bowman Gilfillan - filed urgent papers in the High Court in Pretoria last week to stop Nompumelelo gaining control of about R18-million in dividends scheduled to be paid out by Sasol this month.

Last week the court dismissed the urgency of the application, striking it off the court roll and saying that Maduna had not given Nompumelelo, 61, and the other five respondents sufficient time to ''digest" the 690 pages of his founding affidavit.

But round two of the bruising legal battle is on the cards.

Nompumelelo's lawyer David Feldman told the Sunday Times this week that he was preparing answering affidavits in response to the "scurrilous", "highly defamatory" and "untrue" allegations.

The affidavits would "comprehensively disprove those defamatory allegations", said Feldman.

Maduna also stands to lose access to the shares allotted to him when the massive deal with Sasol was struck in July 2006.

As the lead promoter of the broad-based BEE transaction, Maduna received a stake of 17.9% - nearly a fifth - of the acquisition, with a personal initial value estimated to be just under R260-million.

The couple - who friends say had a very private marriage - divorced in 2013. They have two adult children, who also stand to benefit from the payout, which is R22-million in total.

Maduna says in his court papers that he regrets the day last year that he made his ex-wife a co-director of the shelf company he set up to receive the payouts from the BEE deal, Ngazana Liquid Fuels.

She had "abused my trust" and along with others had "sided against me" to redirect the funds to herself, totally cutting him out.

He accuses her of diverting 51% of the shareholding to her family trust, of which he is not a beneficiary.

The change in equity means Maduna will not see a cent of his R10.8-million share of the payout.

Also left out in the cold is Nompumelelo's sister Sithabile Sithole, who was due to receive about R7-million in the initial shareholding but may now get nothing.

In a WhatsApp message to his former adviser, which was included in his court documents, Maduna says that by redirecting the funds, Nompumelelo and the other co-directors have made "me a beggar in an entity they didn't create & a deal they had absolutely no role in the negotiations that yielded it!"

In a subsequent message he writes: "You know as well as I do that if Mpume's Trust takes 51%, I get nothing! That much you can't deny or dismiss as nonsense!"

He says Nompumelelo ''intended to snooker me, the person who brought the wealth to the table".

In another WhatsApp message, Maduna writes of his "ignorance of business & trust abused".

Maduna, Nompumelelo and Sithole would not comment on the case this week.

Maduna claims in court papers that he had used a company called EuroBlitz 30 to hold Sithole's 28% because he feared her ex-husband would claim half her shareholding.

But in argument against the urgency of the application, Nompumelelo claims that hiding a stake for Sithole for the purpose of avoiding a claim from her ex-husband would be fraudulent.

Sithole's 28% stake and Maduna's generosity to his sister-law remain s a mystery, with a source close to the case saying: "Who knows why he gave her the shares? All will be revealed when the other side files."

Nompumelelo is a successful businesswoman in her own right and is the chief operating officer of NOOA Petroleum, according to its website.

She has several degrees, including a master's in information studies from Sheffield University in the UK and an MBA from Bond University in Australia. She has held management and executive positions at various companies, including South African Breweries and Otis Elevators.

Maduna, meanwhile, is best known as Thabo Mbeki's former justice minister who in recent years has turned to cattle breeding.

Back in 2006 he spearheaded the R1.45-billion BEE deal with Sasol along with former Sasol chairwoman Hixonia Nyasulu and former Nedbank chairman Reuel Khoza, in which their Tshwarisano consortium acquired 25% of Sasol Oil's liquid fuels business.

The Tshwarisano deal paid off its financing debt in February this year, after which Sasol declared a R356-million dividend to Tshwarisano shareholders as the deal reached completion and Tshwarisano shareholders effectively became owners of normal Sasol shares.

Maduna says in his affidavit that when he discovered how Nompumelelo had "snookered" him, she had "dangled a carrot" by offering him some properties owned by her family trust in exchange for accepting the new shareholding arrangement.

Nompumelelo's trust contains 11 properties - five of which are in a sectional title scheme and were bought for R3.25-million each - and include a Bryanston property bought for R12-million and a Hurlingham property bought for R10-million.

Maduna's lawyer Andries Hansen declined to comment this week, saying the matter was sub judice.

Sasol spokesman Alex Anderson this week confirmed that Sasol Oil had paid dividends to Tshwarisano but said the company was "not in a position to provide any information regarding the extent of the dividend payments".

The current value of the transaction would need to be determined through a formal valuation process, he said.

"The dividends were utilised by Tshwarisano to pay back its debt with its funders.

"This debt was recently settled by Tshwarisano when the transaction vested earlier this year.

"This event marks a key milestone for Sasol, as its main objective of the transaction to empower historically disadvantaged South Africans has been realised.

"Funds received by Tshwarisano from Sasol Oil in the form of dividends would now flow to these participants unencumbered."

He said Sasol Oil had declared a dividend to its shareholders in February, resulting in the payment of the R356-million dividend to Tshwarisano.

"We were informed by the Tshwarisano directors that Tshwarisano, in turn, declared a dividend to its shareholders, who comprise of various historically disadvantaged South African entities holding shares in Tshwarisano," said Anderson.

laganparsadm@sundaytimes.co.za, peacockb@sundaytimes.co.za