Caption: President of the African Export–Import Bank, Dr. Benedict Oramah (left), presenting the award the Group Managing Director, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake.
President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, was on Monday night in Accra, capital of Ghana, won the “Afreximbank Founder of the Year 2023” award by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) for his newly commissioned $19bn petrochemicals plant, now Africa’s largest refinery.
Group Managing Director, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake, received the award on behalf of Dangote.
A statement issued by the organisers of the award said the award was to recognize his “extraordinary achievements building one of Africa’s leading industrial groups with a truly pan-African footprint. This comes on the back of the recent official opening of his $19bn petrochemicals plant and Africa’s largest refinery, which received substantial support from Afreximbank.”
The Pan-African Business and Development Awards, it explained, “were designed to celebrate and recognise the excellence of outstanding organisations and individuals within the African business and finance sectors.
Two others were also recognized for their outstanding contributions to African business and industry at the occasion, they are: Zimbabwean, Strive Masiyiwa and the Togolese, Koffi Gervais Djondo.
Masiyiwa is the founder of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, the largest network of fibre optic cables on the continent, Cassava Technologies, and Econet, the largest telecoms and mobile payment operator in Zimbabwe; while Djondo helped found Ecobank, the leading African group in terms of footprint, as well as regional airline Asky.
The statement further revealed that telecoms operator- MTN and Egyptian business ElSewedy clinched Special Recognitions awards.
While MTN was recognised for transforming the Africa telecoms sector and ElSewedy for its role in the Africa infrastructure sector, the statement said ElSewedy and Afreximbank have built a strong relationship that has seen its group become a true continental champion. This is besides being part of a consortium of African banks and private sector companies that are building the multi-billion dollar Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project in Tanzania.
Three banks were recognised in the Financial Institutions of the Year category. National Bank of Egypt, First Bank of Nigeria and Coris Bank, an important regional player in West Africa that started off in Burkina Faso, were chosen based on their volume of trade finance facilities they have utilised.
