The head office of a company that owns Independent Media was yesterday raided by officials from a government agency.

According to Business Report, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) pounced on businessman Dr Iqbal Survé's Cape Town offices, which house Sekunjalo Holdings and African Equity Empowerment Investment.

Business Report as well as The Star, Weekend Argus, Pretoria News newspapers are owned by Sekunjalo through Independent Media.

The FSCA officials reportedly arrived at Sekunjalo's offices near the V&A Waterfront on grounds that they were investigating a case of irregularly share trading against one of Survé's companies, AYO Technology Solutions.

The raid, according to the article, however, had to come to an abrupt end when the FSCA team allegedly failed to produce a court order showing they had the right to raid the offices.

The investigators are said to have demanded access to Surve's personal assistant Maude Nyandoro's laptop and downloaded information from the device.

In a video clip of the raid, Survé accused public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan of being behind the raid.

"It's Pravin Gordhan behind this and certain people. It's an abuse of regulatory authority… I'm aware you went to the first judge [to seek a search and seizure order]and the judge said no to you, it's a political case. And you went to the second judge, who's a friend of the DA and Pravin Gordhan," said Surve, adding that the laptop of his PA would not be seized as it contains privileged information."

When an FSCA official, who identified herself as Nomsa Banda, tried to address Surve, he interjected: "This is Pravin Gordhan using state institutions to fight political battles because Independent Media is not keeping quiet about corruption that exists among certain ministers, the Sars rogue unit. It's an attempt to intimidate us."