The New African Times

Didier Yves Drogba Tébily : NET POCKET MONEY £15 MILLION as of March 2009(born 11 March 1978 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) is an Ivorian footballer who plays in the centre forward position. He currently plays for Chelsea in the English Premier League.

As a young child Drogba moved to France, living with various family members. After playing in youth teams, Drogba made his professional debut aged 18 for Ligue 2 club Le Mans. A late bloomer, he signed his first professional contract aged 21 but it was not until the 2002–03 season that he realised his potential, scoring 17 goals in 34 appearances in Ligue 1 for Guingamp. During the same season he made his first international appearance for Côte d'Ivoire in September and scored his first international goal the following February. He moved to Olympique de Marseille in 2003 for £3.3 million and his prolific ways continued, finishing as the third highest scorer in the league with 19 goals and making it to the 2004 UEFA Cup Final.

Drogba moved to Chelsea the following season for a record breaking fee of £24 million and helped the club win their first ever Premier League title. In addition, Drogba scored decisive goals in the 2005 FA Community Shield and League Cup Final. Drogba came to prominence as one of the world's foremost strikers in 2006 as he won the league title with Chelsea again and captained the national team for the first time. In the 2006 World Cup he scored Côte d'Ivoire's first ever goal of the competition and he was chosen as the 2006 African Footballer of the Year. The next season he finished as top scorer in the 2006–07 Premier League with 20 goals and also scored the winning goal in the 2007 FA Cup Final.

Away from the pitch, Drogba is known for his charity work and was appointed by the United Nations Development Programme as a Goodwill Ambassador in 2007. He has three children with his wife Alla, a Malian.

 50 year old business man, Aliko Dangote is Nigeria's Richest.
He's estimated to be worth 8 billion dollars. When converted, that amounts to 1 Trillion Naira. Making him Nigeria's first authentic trillionaire.
Listed two years consecutively as Nigeria's richest man, his net worth in 2005 was $1.6 billion, and $4billion in 2006, now he's valued at $8billion in 2007.Dangote made his name in commodity trading especially sugar importation into Nigeria which he admits he controls over 60 percent today. Given the heavy demand by Nigeria's soft drink industry, breweries and confectionery industries for sugar, he makes a kill by doing volume business and gaining advantages to undercut competitors. Dispelling rumours of his cornering the market with the connivance of government support, he says it is an open market but because of his enormous investment in the business and his transport haulage business, he can distribute his sugar faster, cheaper and at a uniform prize nationwide which the competition cannot match. Dangote is reputed to have good investments even in foreign-based sugar refineries that supply.

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 Meet the Bill Gates of Ghana       

 Brash, ambitious, and optimistic, Herman Chinery-Hesse has already done what many considered impossible -- building a thriving tech business in his native Ghana. His new goal: to spark an entrepreneurial revolution in Africa by bringing e-commerce to the most remote corners of the continent.

  Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim (born 1946) is a Sudanese-born British mobile communications entrepreneur. He worked for several other telecommunications companies before founding Celtel. He is currently on the board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and is a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of London Business School.

Ibrahim earned a Bachelor of Science from University of Alexandria and a master's degree from the University of Bradford, both in electrical engineering, and a PhD from the University of Birmingham in mobile communications.In 1998, MSI spun off MSI-Cellular Investments, later renamed Celtel, as a mobile phone operator in Africa. Ibrahim sold Celtel to the Kuwaiti MTC for US$3.4bn (£1.8bn) in 2005,^[2] amassing a personal fortune estimated at more than $650 million.As of 2007, Celtel operates in 15 African countries.

  Mr Patrice T.Motsepe                                      

Johannesburg RSA

Worth: £2 billion

He went on to earn a BA from Swaziland University, a LLB from Wits University, and become a partner at the law firm of Bowman Gilfillan, where he specialized in mining and business law. In 1994, he shifted to the mining industry. He founded a contract mining operation called Future Mining, which provided various services to the then Vaal Reefs gold mine, now part of AngloGold. That put him in the right place at the right time to benefit from the restructuring of the South Africa gold mining industry.    Read more    

 BIODUN SHOBANJE                

Shobanjo (63) who is popularly known as Nigeria's ‘Father of Advertising' said that he accepted the challenge and with the stakeholders would work towards creating and developing a program of which everyone can be proud.

As CEO of The Apprentice Africa, he joins a long line of distinguished corporate titans and business moguls that includes Donald Trump, United Kingdom's Allan Sugar and South African's Tokyo Sexwale amongst others, whose presence, charisma, business savvy and panache have been integral to the success of the franchise.Estimated worth : £500 million plus or minus

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 Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam, often going by the shorter Aliaune Thiam (born 14 October 1981 in St. Louis, Missouri; raised in Dakar, Senegal), and better known by stage name Akon, is a Grammy Award-nominated Senegalese hip-hop and R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, and record executive. He is the founder of both Konvict Muzik and Kon Live Distribution. Other sources have his name as Alioune Badara Thiam.
Akon is the son of jazz percussionist Mor Thiam. He grew up in Senegal until he was seven, split time between Senegal and the U.S. until he was fifteen, he speaks English, French, and Wolof. In Jersey City he attended Snyder High School,where he discovered hip hop music. His first song was entitled "Operations of Nature," which he recorded at age 15. However, he was jailed for armed robbery and drug distribution charges, and used his time in prison to work on his music. Upon release, Akon began writing and recording tracks in his home studio.

 Thandie Newton,born 6 November 1972, is the daughter of a Zimbabwean mother of the Shona Tribe and a British father. She lived in Zambia until political unrest caused her family to move back to the UK. She then lived in Cornwall in the southwest of England until the age of 11. At that time she enrolled in London's Art Educational School, where she studied modern dance. However, a back injury forced her from dancing. This led to her auditioning for films and receiving her first role in John Duigan's Flirting (1991). She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and her then-boyfriend. However, her British accent limited the amount of work she was getting, and she returned to Britain, where she went to Cambridge University to study, eventually receiving a degree in anthropology.

 Jamelia was born in Smethwick in the county of the West Midlands of the United Kingdom, to a Zimbabwean father and Jamaican mother and raised in the Winson Green area of Birmingham. She was signed to Parlophone at the age of fifteen, after impressing record executives with self-written a cappella songs. Jamelia attended the The City Technology College in Kingshurst. She gave birth to her first daughter Teja in March 2001 and her second daughter Tiani on October 21, 2005. On October 9, 2007 she announced her engagement to Bristol City footballer Darren Byfield, the father of Tiani.

 IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT JAMELIA'S RICHES OR HER FATHER'S SHONA OR NDEBELE NAME (BEING ZIMBABWEAN AND BLACK) PLEASE CONTACT US AT newsdesk@thenewafricantimes.com

 Mosima Gabriel Sexwale (born 5 March 1953), commonly known as Tokyo Sexwale, is a South African businessman and former politician, anti-apartheid activist, and political prisoner. Sexwale was imprisoned on Robben Island for his anti-apartheid activities, alongside figures such as Nelson Mandela.Some of Sexwale's main interests are oil and diamond mining, for which he has been granted concessions across Africa and Russia; these interests are controlled by a subsidiary of Mvelaphanda Holdings called Mvelaphanda Resources, of which he is chairman.

In particular, Sexwale has become a major player in the diamond industry, with his company reportedly being the third biggest after De Beers and JFPI Corporation. He was praised by no less a figure than Harry Oppenheimer, the patriarch of the Anglo-American and De Beers corporations, as having an understanding of the South African and international diamond mining industry that few can equal.Sexwale also chairs companies such as the Trans Hex Group Ltd. and Northam Platinum Ltd.; in addition, he is a director of companies such as Absa Group Limited, Allied Electronics Corporation Ltd. (more commonly known as Altech) and Gold Fields Ltd. (the latter two positions are non-executive).                                                 

 Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African lawyer, trade union leader, activist, politician and businessman. He was born in Soweto, near Johannesburg, in what is now Gauteng province. While Ramaphosa was previously a major figure in South African national politics, he has in recent years become a prominent figure in the business community.

He is a billionaire by South African standards and estimated to have a personal fortune of over £100 million and still growing by the day.

 Strive Masiyiwa (aka "Bill Gates of Africa") is a Zimbabwean businessman and cellphone pioneer, founding Econet Wireless.Strive Masiyiwa was born  in 1961. He went to High school in Scotland; he gained a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Cum Laude) at the University of Wales, returning to newly independent Zimbabwe in 1984, where he took a job with the state-owned telephone company. But he grew frustrated with the bureaucracy and formed his own engineering company. He applied for the country's first mobile-phone license yet had to fight all the way to the supreme court before he could connect his first subscribers in 1998.His privately held company, Econet Wireless, generates revenue of more than $300 million a year, making it one of Africa's five largest telecom companies. Econet's operation includes cellular and fixed-line businesses in Zimbabwe, Burundi, Lesotho and Botswana. The company also owns a 3G license in New Zealand. In New Zealand Econet will soon launch that country's third GSM network. He also owns a cellular licence in Kenya and will soon be launching the network. 

 BENJANI MWARUWARU   

Benjamin Mwaruwari, commonly known as Benjani, (born 13 August 1978 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) is a footballer currently playing for Manchester City. He was born to parents of Malawian descent and has chosen to represent his nation of birth, Zimbabwe, internationally.Benjani began his career at the Lulu Rovers and University of Zimbabwe teams in Zimbabwe's Division one and Air Zimbabwe Jets in the country's Premier League in 1999. He moved to South African club Jomo Cosmos in 1999 where he met his mentor Jomo Sono, after impressing in the friendly match between South Africa and Zimbabwe that was played to commomerate the inauguration of Thabo Mbeki as the president of South Africa.He is worth an estimated £5 million plus or minus.If you know more,contact us at newsdesk@thenewafricantimes.com

 Philip Chiyangwa (born 1959) the founder of the Affirmative Action Group, a chair of Native Africa Investments Ltd,and has served as an MP for the ZANU-PF party in Zimbabwe.He is a cousin of President Robert Mugabe.Philip Chiyangwa grew-up in Chegutu town, some 100km south of Harare. He went to St. Francis school. His mother was from the Guta raJehovah sect. His young brothers James (Jimalo), Josphat and Mophat went to Pfupajena school.He worked for Chakari Mine before he was called up as a member of the BSAP African Reserve.The maverick Phillip Chiyangwa is set to list his engineering concern Zeco Holdings on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in a multi –trillion dollar deal that will certainly cement his place among the country’s top businessmen.Estimated worth £15 million plus or minus

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON PHILIP CHIYANGWA PLEASE SEND TO US AT newsdesk@thenewafricantimes.com                                          

 NIGEL CHANAKIRA      At 41, he is already a multi-million dollar businessman and a distinguished corporate executive. He is a man who can fly to any holiday destination. He can drive any car he wants. He can even afford a private jet if he wishes, but he is just a plain human being who realised a fortune out of hardwork and courage. He maintains two homes, one in Harare and the other in Johannesburg, South Africa where his four children are schooling. He is the founder and director of Kingdom Financial Holding Limited (KFHL), which has operations in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana. Under his stewardship, KFHL rose to become one of the top 10 companies in market capitalisation in Zimbabwe and received that country's Stock Exchange's award. KFHL is a holding company, with a group of businesses spanning a range of activities in the financial service industry. He was named young global leader by World Economic Forum in 2005. Before the close of the year, his multi-national company will be registered on the London Stock exchange. By next year, it would also be registered on the New York Stock exchange. Estimated Net Worth: £60 million+

newsdesk@thenewafricantimes.com

  Oliver Chidawu was born in Zimbabwe in 1954. He is a first generation entrepreneur who founded and manages the Kuchi Group of companies that is active in building and electrical contracting. Mr. Chidawu is a major shareholder in Bitumen Construction Services and Heritage Insurance Company. He was a founding shareholder and director of Heritage Investment Bank that merged with First Merchant Bank in 1997. Oliver M. Chidawu Non executive Chairman of Manders Group. He is also Chairman of African Banking Corporation (Zimbabwe) Limited and many other quoted and private Zimbabwean companies in various industries including financial services, construction, manufacturing, waste management and others. Mr. Chidawu is a well renowned and articulate businessman who has been invited as speaker in business seminars including those hosted by Harvard University. A Chartered Engineer, Mr Chidawu has engineering and business administration degree qualifications. Robert Mugabe is allegedly parcelling out the country’s natural resource assets to his pals, in such a fashion that their add-on value might quickly disappear. Unless Mugabe does so first. He has made Zanu-PF confrere, Philip Chiyangwa, the second biggest shareholder in the country’s largest cement manufacturer, Circle Cement. He’s passed a controlling stake in Zimbabwe’s largest steel producer, Macsteel, to a senior aide. And Oliver Chidawu, another Mugabe call-boy, is now part of a consortium holding a majority stake in Bindura Nickel.One of Oliver Chidawu's company directors was deceased Zimbabwe Air Marshall, Josiah Tungamirai,a top Mugabe.Chidawu is former Zanu PF mayor of Harare and a strong Mugabe supporter.Read more: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20030725/ai_n1270601

 FANTA ESTELLE SWARAY                                 

Estelle,British born Senegalese, was born in West London in 1980 (after which her autobiographical first single was named). She is one of eight children, born to a Senegalese mother and a father from Grenada.   

 I grew up all over West London—West Kent, Hammersmith, Shepherd’s Bush—and stayed in West London my whole life. Everyone thinks I’m from South, I don’t know why. I think the assumption is that South is kind of like Brooklyn, and I have that swagger. We were broke but we didn’t know it—it was that kind of moment. We grew up around a lot of crazy situations, drugs and that kind of shit, but we weren’t too much aware of it. My mom was good at shielding us from it.

Born into a strictly religious Senagalese/Granadan family where she was the second of eight children, Estelle learned early about responsibility for self and family, as well as how to escape life’s daily pressures through music. Though her mother had banned secular music in the house, young Estelle was exposed to African music and gospel (as well as her West Indian stepfather’s roots reggae and dub) via an impressive homemade soundsystem. At school, ‘80s pop was the dominant sound. It wasn’t long before a teenage Estelle was sneaking out of the house to hear hip hop. “You don’t have to compromise yourself as an artist,” says Estelle. “You just have to make the standard believable and relatable.” While her previous successes were notable, they followed an unconventional path

Estelle runs her own record label, Stellar Ents,and has released her own material through this - including the two "Da Heat" mixtapes Part 1 and 2, the album The 18th Day and the singles "1980", "Free" and "Go Gone". She featured on Natasha Bedingfield's song "Drop Me In The Middle" for Natasha's U.S. release of Unwritten. She also did a memorable rap verse on a 2006 Omar song, "Lay it down". In addition, she released a hit song featuring rapper Kanye West titled "American Boy".

Estelle was originally on the Ill Flava Records.^[4] label owned by Hip Hop award winner Karl Hinds, who together with Estelle and Joni Rewind re-released the well known Althia & Donna - 1978 track, "Uptown Top Rankin". Estelle also worked on various other tracks and videos with Karl Hinds and Ill Flava Records.

In 2006, Estelle appeared at the London School Harris City Technology College for a Post 16 Year Of Achievement Night, and she could also be seen in the video for John Legend's single "Save Room". Also in 2006, Estelle joined rapper Kardinal Offishall's Black Jays International, and was eventually signed to singer John Legend's Homeschool Records through Atlantic Records^.

Her second album featured production from the likes of Will.I.Am, Wyclef Jean, Mark Ronson, Cee-Lo, Swizz Beatz, and John Legend.

Kanye West also features on the album, on a track called "American Boy" which reached number one in the UK singles chart on March 23, 2008.Estelle will be touring with Wyclef Jean with the tour dates soon to be announced. The album was placed on the short list for the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize in 2008.

Recently she has got into a controversy by claiming that racist attitudes in the U.K. music industry promote white artists over black artists performing the same style of music.

Phuthuma Nhleko, Sifiso Dabengwa, Rob Nisbet and Irene Charnley from cellular operator MTN are among them, while mining magnate Patrice Motsepe is now the third-richest man in the country — ahead of Johann Rupert.

The sustained bull run on the JSE means there are a total of 28 billionaires, who hold a combined fortune of R118-billion.

Other billionaires are Abe Krok, through his holding in gaming and entertainment company, Gold Reef Resorts; and Tokyo Sexwale, chairman of investment and mining group, Mvelaphanda.

Jannie Mouton, executive chairman of financial services company PSG Group; Koos Bekker, chief executive of media giant Naspers; and Peter Malungani, founder of investment holding company Peu Investment Group are the other newcomers.

According to analysts, the JSE’s bull run has contributed significantly to the increased wealth of most corporate executives and investors with shares in listed companies since 2004.

With only 21 billionaires last year, the Rich List now boasts 28.

Among the 183 people who are worth over R100-million each are businessmen Cyril Ramaphosa, Marcel Golding, Saki Macozoma and Tutukile Skweyiya, wife of Social Development Minister, Zola Skweyiya.

Of the top 100 wealthiest on the list, about 20 are black and three are women.

Although the number of people with such wealth is actually much higher, the Sunday Times only included the list of people from publicly available information on JSE-listed investments.

Research staff of Who Owns Whom excluded property, cash, offshore investments or money held with fund managers from their calculations.

Entrepreneurs, sports stars, holders of patent rights and owners of non-listed companies may be as rich as people on this list, but it is impossible to determine their wealth, or even their identities.

South Africa’s old-money families, the Oppenheimers and Ruperts, who have always been considered S A ’s richest families, have been overshadowed by Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who is officially the richest man in the country.

The India-born steel magnate, who tops the list for the third consecutive year, with R27.3-billion, has been included in the list by virtue of his shareholding in steel maker Mittal SA. His wealth represents the value of his investment in S A only.

The Rich List, which calculates wealth as at March 31 this year, places Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of the world’s biggest diamond producer, De Beers, in second position, with a R16-billion shareholding in Anglo American. Motsepe, who was ranked eighth in 2005, is now the country’s third-richest person with a R13.5-billion fortune in shares alone.

Last year his fortune from shares in mining company African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and financial group, Sanlam, was R7.9-billion.

Trained as a lawyer, the son of a restaurant and bottle store owner, founded ARM in 1997.

Ten years later, Motsepe’s wealth in shares tops the R8.3-billion of Johann Rupert, the chairman of luxury-goods empire Richemont — accumulated since 1948 when his family’s cigarette factory, an old flour mill in Paarl, rolled out their first cigarettes.

The four MTN executives are ranked among the 26 richest South Africans, with their shares boosted mostly by the cellular operator’s rapid global expansion.

Businessman Bill Venter, who founded Allied Electric with capital of R12000 in 1965; and Bill Lynch, who built Imperial Holdings, the country’s largest transport and mobility conglomerate after arriving in the country 35-years ago with £2000 and no job, again feature on the Rich List.

The banking sector has also created four billionaires — Laurie Dippenaar, Paul Harris, GT Ferreira and Jannie Mouton.

Retail tycoon Christo Wiese — himself firmly entrenched in the exclusive set — once said that the billionaires club in SA had become so big so fast that he’d met businessmen “worth a couple of hundred million and I’ve never heard of them before”.

But the ones he is no doubt aware of include Stephen Saad, Aspen Pharmacare Holdings CEO; Elisabeth Bradley, chairman of Wesco Investments Limited, an investment company with a substantial shareholding in Toyota SA; and Murray Grindrod, who recently retired as chairman of shipping group Grindrod Limited after 50 years with the group.

The Rich List shows that white men remain by far the wealthiest South Africans.

The list also features companies that still boast founding family members on their boards or in senior executive positions, and who hold significant stakes.

The Ackerman family’s stake in Pick n Pay amounts to more than R3.7-billion, while Giovanni Ravazzotti owns more than R4-billion worth of shares in tiling and sanitaryware retailers Italtile Group and Ceramic Industries.

Krok and his son Maxim own over R1.6- billion worth of shares in Gold Reef Resorts.

The sons of Bell Equipment founder Irvine Bell — Paul, Gary and Peter — hold a combined R961-million worth of shares .

The most startling aspect of the Rich List is that many of SA’s top executives earn many times their salaries from share options.

Edcon CEO Stephen Ross once again tops the earnings list — but for the last time, as his company has now delisted.

He earned R78-million last year , including a salary of R6.3-million, gains on shares of R61.6-million and the remainder on bonus and benefits.

Sasol’s non-executive chairman Pieter Cox earned R72.5-million, including R64-million in gains on share