According to Face2Face Africa, a bi-annual publication, the continent has about 24 billionaires in total but only five of them, including Dewji (pictured), are making the biggest contribution to job creation.
Dewji is cited as the youngest billionaire in Africa with a fortune estimated at $1.25 billion. He is the chief executive officer of Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited Group (METL), a Tanzanian conglomerate with interests in transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing, among others.
He is an American-educated graduate of International Business and Finance, and owns about 75 percent of METL. He is also a former parliamentarian and philanthropist.
According to Africa-Me.com, METL contributes about 2 per cent to Tanzania’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employs more than 28,000 people with several indirect employments.
Also named in Face2Face Africa’s list of top five billionaires contributing to job creation in Africa are Issad Rebrab, founder of Algeria’s largest privately held conglomerate Cevital, who also and owns a sugar refinery and has diversified interests in electronics, steel, vegetable oil, and margarine.
Rebrab’s group employs about 12,000 people. Egypt’s Naguib Onsi Sawiris is chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding which has ventures in railways, information technology, and telecommunications; while South Africa’s Christo Wiese is the largest individual shareholder and chairman of retail giants Pepkor, Shoprite, and Tradehold, The group has some 2,800 stores and employs 160,000 people across the whole group.
Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote, undisputedly the continent’s richest man, is founder of Dangote Group, one of the most diversified business conglomerates with a presence in 16 African countries.
The group’s interests span manufacturing, sugar, cement, and rice, and he is also currently building the largest refinery, petrochemical, and fertilizer complex in Africa.
Dangote is said to have the second-largest number of employees in Nigeria, topped only by that country’s government itself.