Mr Dewji who is the youngest billionaire
in Africa with a fortune of over 1.25bn US Dollars, has grown his
family’s business from a national trading house to a multibillion dollar
multinational conglomerate creating more than 28,000 jobs in the
process.
According to Face2Face website, Mr Dewji
(41) was pitted against 24 other billionaires in Africa in March, this
year, emerging in the top five. METL also contributes two per cent to
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He pushed METL to one of the largest
industrial conglomerates in East Africa, with interests in
manufacturing, distribution, trading, haulage, storage and real estate.
The company was founded by his father,
Mr Gulam Dewji, in the 1970s as a commodities trading house, but when
the younger Dewji returned to Tanzania after pursuing a business degree
in the United States, he joined the business.
He bought government-owned manufacturing
facilities in the textiles and edible oils industries and built METL
into a multibillion company. The company is now active in East, Southern
and Central Africa. Last December, Mr Dewji was named the ‘Person of
The Year’ and the 158th richest person in the world by Forbes Magazine
last year.
In the list of top five African
billionaires creating jobs, Aliko Dangote (59), who is the founder of
Dangote Group takes the lead, with one of the most diversified business
conglomerates in the continent and a presence in 16 countries in Africa
with a net worth of 25bn US Dollars (about 52.2trl/-).
In Nigeria, Dangote employs more than
200,000 people while in Tanzania he employs 10,000 people out of whom
1,000 are permanent employees.
In the second position is Mr Christo
Wiese, from South Africa who owns Shoprite, Pepkor and Tradehold with a
net worth 3.1bn US Dollars, about 6.5trl/- and employs 160,000 people.
Mr Naguib Onsi Sawiris at number three, is an Egyptian billionaire and
chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding, with a personal wealth of 3.1bn US
Dollars, employing about 72,000 people.
Number four is Mr Issad Rehab, worth
3.5bn US Dollars, an Algerian national who founded Algeria’s largest
privately held conglomerate, Cevital. Rehab owns a sugar refinery and
has diversified interests in electronics, steel, vegetable oil and
margarine and employs 30,000 people.
Mr Dewji and the others beat other
contenders who included Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the current chairperson
of Africa Union and first wife of South Africa President Jacob Zuma and
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari whose recognition in fighting
corruption saw him enter the race.
The METL CEO said the 28,000 employment
went to Tanzanians across the country, expressing his hope in providing
more jobs in the near future due to growth of his businesses
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