Despite corruption and increased investment opportunities Uganda has registered over the years, the country is not home for billionaires. A latest report shows the number of the super-rich in Tanzania far supersedes that of Uganda and Kenya.
According to the 2020 Wealth Report by Property management firm Knight Frank, Uganda lags behind its regional partners Kenya and Tanzania without a dollar-billionaire as yet. Only Tanzania has so far registered a billionaire since 2014 when the first report on global wealth distribution was issued.
The report shows that despite Kenya being the largest economy in the region, Tanzania is home to the most dollar millionaires. Tanzania’s super-rich stood at 5,668 at the end of 2019 compared to Kenya’s 2,942. This includes 5,553 who are dollar millionaires.
Uganda has 137 individuals worth over 30 million dollars, five who are worth $300 million and above, with not even one individual in a billion dollar category.
Kenya has 2,900 dollar millionaires, 42 individuals worth $300 million and above, and none in the category of dollar-billionaire. In contrast, Uganda and Kenya rank higher than Tanzania according to latest Corruption Perception Index 2019 report published by Transparency International.
In the East African region however, Kenya, which has had a perfect run growing its dollar-millionaires (those worth KSh100 million and above) by 263 per cent in five years from 2014, experienced a slowdown last year.
Besides Kenya and Tanzania, other African countries that were spotlighted in the report are Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
South Africa has the most multi-millionaires on the continent, 88,460 followed by Nigeria which has 40,869 super rich individuals. Globally, the United States leads the pack with over 16 million billionaires of the 49 billionaires registered globally in 2019.
There are only 22 dollar-billionaires (Sh100 billion and above) in Africa, having reduced from 30 in 2014. The report does not given reason for the drop in dollar billionaires.
However, it is possible that the drop in commodity prices which has hit hard South Africa, home of the continent’s dollar billionaires, is partly to blame. South Africa has the most dollar billionaires (6) followed by Nigeria, with 4.