Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote
NIGERIAN billionaire Aliko Dangote’s much-hyped plan to invest $1 billion in Zimbabwe’s cement, coal and power industries in 2015 collapsed after political bigwigs pressured him to “grease their palms”, The Financial Gazette can reveal.
Dangote made a high-profile visit to Zimbabwe in October 2015, meeting the then President Robert Mugabe as the investment-starved country shut out of global capital markets since the turn of the century hoped for some succour from Africa’s richest man.
Dangote’s highly publicised investment plans included the construction of a $400 million cement plant that would produce 1,5 million tonnes annually, doubling the country’s output at the time.