Richest Person In Kenya And Top 10 Wealthy Kenyans
Kenya’s super-rich are missing from the list of Africa’s dollar billionaires, as Forbes magazine published the list of the continent’s wealthiest individuals.
Although the number of countries with dollar billionaires in Africa has increased from four to eight over the past decade to 2020, this year there was not even one Kenyan in the list of Africa’s 20 richest men and women.
Although Kenya is East Africa’s biggest economy and the eighth largest in Africa, it has been left behind by neighbouring Tanzania, which has one dollar billionaire – Mohammed Dewji.
Mr Dewji, 44, was ranked the 16th wealthiest man in Africa with a $1.6 billion fortune in textile, flour milling, beverages and edible oil. In October 2018, he was kidnapped at gunpoint in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, and released after nine days.
Egypt and South Africa have the highest number of dollar billionaires with five each, followed by Nigeria (four) and Morocco two. Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa, with an estimated net worth of $10.1 billion (Sh1 trillion) built from sugar, cement and flour industries. The world’s richest man is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, with a networth of $113 billion. His wealth has increased in recent weeks as rules on social distancing helped his e-commerce giant to grow by eliminating the need for shoppers to physically visit outlets. Mr Bezos has been ranked as the richest man for three years in a row.
Manu Chandaria
Generating a net worth of $1.7 billion, Manu Chandaria is the richest man in Kenya. He is is a Kenyan businessman of Indian descent.
Along with being a senior member of the Comcraft Group of Companies, a billion dollar enterprise that has a presence in over 40 countries, he is on the boards of several prominent East African companies.
He has won several awards in East Africa and internationally in recognition of his entrepreneurial endeavours and is also a noted philanthropist.
In 2003, Chandaria was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.In December of the same year, he was awarded the Elder of the Burning Spear by former president Mwai Kibaki, one of the highest civilian honours in Kenya.
He has been hailed as “one of Kenya’s leading industrialists”
The Richest Man in Kenya Number 2
Mama Ngina Kenyatta -$1 biilion
We may have gone out of our article title a bit but Mama Kenyatta is worth mentioning here.
Mama Ngina“, is the former First Lady of Kenya. She is the widow of the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta (~1889–1978), and also the mother of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In the 1970s, she and other high-level government officials were allegedly involved in an ivory-smuggling ring which transported tusks out of the country in the state private airliner.
A May 1975 edition of New Scientist cited her as one of Kenya’s “ivory queens” but also asserted they could not be completely certain that these claims were true.
However, New Scientist claimed that there was now documentary proof that at least one member of Kenya’s royal family had shipped over six tons of ivory to Red China.
Bhimji Depar Shah – $ 900 million
Bhimji Depar Shah, is a businessman, industrialist and entrepreneur.
He is the founder and current chair of BIDCO Group of Companies, a Kenya-based, family-owned manufacturing conglomerate with businesses in 13 African countries
The Richest Man in Kenya Number 4
Naushad Merali -$600 million
Merali is the founder of the Kenyan mobile service provider Kencell along with French media giant Vivendi.
As one of Kenya’s leading industrialists, Merali has brought commercial development in Kenya for more than 30 years and is constantly expanding his businesses throughout East Africa.
Uhuru Kenyatta -$ 500 million
Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is a Kenyan politician, businessman, and the fourth and current President of the Republic of Kenya.
He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gatundu South from 2002 to 2013. Currently, he is a member and the party leader of the Jubilee Party of Kenya.
Chris Kirubi -$ 400 million
Christopher John Kirubi is a Kenyan businessman, entrepreneur and industrialist. He is a director at Centum Investment Company, a business conglomerate, in which he is the largest individual shareholder.
He chairs the following companies: DHL Express Kenya Limited, Haco Industries Kenya Limited, Kiruma International Limited, International House Limited, Nairobi Bottlers Limited, Sandvik East Africa Limited and 98.4 Capital FM.
He is also non-executive director of Bayer East Africa Limited, UAP Provincial Insurance Company Limited and Beverage Services of Kenya Limited
The Richest Man in Kenya
Peter Munga – $ $ 300 million
Peter Kahara Munga is a businessman and entrepreneur in Kenya, the largest economy in the East African Community. He is the immediate past group chair of the Equity Bank Group, the largest bank holding company on the African continent, by customer numbers, with over 9.2 million customers as of 31 June 2014.
Africa has 20 dollar billionaires, according to this year’s Forbes rich list that based individual’s net worth of mainly using stock prices and the prevailing exchange rate. Their wealth was calculated on certain dates.
The magazine’s past rankings have been hotly disputed with various individuals claiming to either have more or less wealth than estimated by Forbes researchers.
For instance, when Bidco’s Vimal Shah was listed as Kenya’s richest man in 2013 with a networth of $1.6 billion, he dismissed the report as untrue. He was later dropped from the list. Forbes later said it dropped him after landing on new information that led the magazine to attribute the wealth to Bidco’s founder and Vimal’s father, Bhimji Depar Shah and family, not Vimal the individual.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was included on the inaugural list in 2011, was dropped the following year and is no longer included because he is not seen as the custodian of the Kenyatta family’s wealth, then estimated at more than $500 million.
Nigeria-based Ventures financial magazine tipped Manu Chandaria as the wealthiest man in the country and 25th richest on the continent with a fortune of $1.65 billion in 2013.
It placed the fortunes of Nicholas Biwott and Naushad Merali, who both made their money during the era of President Moi, at about $1 billion (Sh86 billion). Other super-rich Kenyans include industrialist Chris Kirubi and the family of the late Philip Ndegwa, a former CBK governor. Mama Ngina Kenyatta has in the past made it to the rich list.
This year, Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of former Angolan president Edwardo dos Santos, was named as Africa’s richest woman with a net worth of $2.2 billion.
Investment managers say the ability of the rich to hide wealth in investment vehicles such as nominee accounts, shell companies and the weak disclosure rules in Kenya, make it difficult to truly ascertain the worth of Kenya’s wealthy.
Most use proxies to own large stakes in listed companies, land and commercial property in key towns across the country.
Besides, a high proportion of Kenya’s rich have stashed their wealth in tax havens like Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.
