CONRAD Gallagher may be suffering credit-card problems at his new Dublin restaurant but back in Cape Town, where he was declared bankrupt last year, his debtors are still bitter over the financial mess he left behind.

Businessmen Eben van der Merwe and Gerhard Witte, who own drinks distributor Distri-Liq, are typical of those who had dealings with the chef.

He left owing the new start-up 96,000 rand (€9,184) – a big sum in South Africa. Witte said: "He comes over as a fantastic guy, great company but he's the biggest bullshitter I've ever met.

"The amount of times he'd say he'd pay us and never did. I don't think he ever intended to pay us.

"He was always playing for time. He'd send us post-dated cheques which bounced. He sent us a proof of payment form, but when we went to check funds, the money had never arrived.

"He came here begging for credit or more time to pay in a top-of-the-range Range Rover. How could he afford that and not pay us?"

During one meeting, the pair asked for Gallagher's €6,700 Breitling watch as security – it now sits in the company safe.

Gallagher fled the city owing millions of rand, with wife Candice and South African-born sons Chandler and Conor, in June. The former model's parents still live in Cape Town.

He arrived in South Africa in 2003 after leaving a trail of debt and court judgements in Dublin and following his arrest in New York and imprisonment on false-theft charges relating to three missing paintings from the Fitzwilliam Hotel.

After his arrival he became a €20,091-a-month consultant to Sun International Hotels, which has upmarket premises across southern Africa, earned €7,175 as a consultant to other businesses and had his own BBC cooking programme, Conrad's Kitchen.

In December 2007, he opened his flagship restaurant, Geisha Wok & Noodle Bar, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Mouille Point and later moved it to the Cape Royale Luxury Hotel. Over time he also opened six Sundance coffee shops.

But as debts mounted around him, payments to staff and suppliers became erratic, ending in the enforced closure of the cafés and noodle bar, where staff struggled to buy food as unpaid suppliers turned against him. That included Mac Brothers Catering who were owed €28,702 for kitchen equipment and banks owed millions from various properties. After launching sequestration proceedings in the summer, Gallagher was declared bankrupt in September.

Since then, liquidators have been sifting through his complex financial arrangements, selling off assets such as his homes to try and pay Gallagher's estimated €2.2m debt.

The chef failed to turn up in court or answer emails and phone calls from former staff and suppliers but is now, reports say, happy to be filmed for a fly-on-the-wall documentary which will be shown in Ireland, Britain and – gallingly for those in Cape Town – South Africa.

For his victims back in Cape Town, that sticks in the throat. His former general manager at Geisha, Marc Gibbons, perhaps suffered more than most. He was left to bear the brunt of staff dissatisfaction and suppliers' anger in the last faltering days. He is still owed €8,610 in unpaid wages, lost his flat and car, owed nearly €861 to the bank and former landlord and struggled to find a new job after being tainted by the business collapse.

"A lot of people blamed me but I didn't know the extent of Conrad's problems and I ended up worse off than anyone."

He had to cope with his father's death from cancer amid the collapse. A promised job in Dublin from Gallagher failed to materialise.

He joined Geisha in March 2008, four months after it opened but spotted things were going wrong a year later when tips were being cut back. It finally collapsed in August when staff were barred from the restaurant by the landlord, Cape Royale hotel, which was owed €105,240 in rent. The night before, Gibbons had turned away customers because they'd run out of food in the kitchen as a result of non-payment of bills.

'He just told lie after lie'

"It's awful and a lot of people were angry. It doesn't surprise me, though – Conrad Gallagher only cares about five people: himself, his wife, his two sons and daughter.

"He just told lie after lie after lie. He told me in July he'd sold his 4x4 top-of-the-range Range Rover and 6 Series BMW convertible to pay the bills but I later found out they'd been repossessed, not sold.

"He'd bounce cheques – writing the wrong date, not signing them or making silly mistakes to make them in­valid, just to buy a little more time. He'd get me to talk to the suppliers; he wouldn't. I never saw him cook in all the time I was there."

He last contacted Gallagher on 15 September when he again asked for his wages to be paid. Since then, texts and emails have gone unanswered. He has since got another job at a new Asian restaurant in Cape Town.

"I wish all the people here could get on a plane and fly to Dublin and protest outside his new restaurant. People there need to know the mess and hurt he left behind in Cape Town."

He said up to 35 staff at Geisha are owed money, including Congolese former waiter Yves Tshibamba (26), who risked not completing his IT degree course after his unpaid wages of €478 meant he couldn't pay his second year fees. That could see him forced out of the country and back to Congo without his degree.

"I am very worried. I just want my wages paid otherwise I will be in trouble. It is very worrying," he said.

But perhaps the most serious accusation is that Gallagher failed to pay tax on his staff's earnings or the obligatory Unemployment Insurance Fund, despite handing out pay slips with the amount deducted.

Worryingly for the Geisha workers, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) has begun contacting them for the back-dated tax, even though they thought it had already been paid. Former operations manager at Geisha and Sundance, Faye Winters, has opened a criminal fraud case with Sars after they demanded backdated tax to last April. If Sars thinks there is a case against Gallagher, he'll face arrest if he returns to the country, a spokesman said.

"He owes me 12,000 rand [€1,148] in total but I'm not going to get it – I know that. But now Sars want 8,000 rand [€765] for five months' tax which I thought I'd paid," said Winters.

South Africa's Department of Labour has also been investigating Gallagher after he failed to register or pay the obligatory UIF, which provides staff with dole money in case of job loss.

It seems anyone who had dealings with Gallagher during his six-year stay in Cape Town only has bad words to dish up on the Irishman.

'He said we'd be paid, but we weren't'

Father-of-two Yusuf Cassim (53), a salesman at Airport Meats, nearly lost his job after Gallagher failed to pay his meat bill, which grew to €9,350. "I was very worried because he'd tell me he'd make this payment or send a cheque and it didn't happen. He always said we'd be paid, but we weren't," said Cassim.

The debtors list is long: Cape Town council, Absa bank, Nedbank, Ultra Liquors, Beluga Foods, Chester Finance, Mac Brothers, to name a few. Whenever he has spoken publicly about his business failings in Cape Town, Gallagher has blamed bad property investments and tighter credit acts for his downfall but nearly everyone spoken to said that was unfair.

Gibbons added: "That is complete rubbish. Geisha was doing 100 covers a night in winter and 200 in summer so there was no problem with the restaurant. The truth is we don't know what happened but what I do know is that his name is mud in Cape Town and he is not welcome back here."

Gallagher did not return phone calls from the Sunday Tribune.