Cyril Ramaphosa was confirmed last week as South Africa’s new President hours after scandal-plagued leader Jacob Zuma resigned.
Ramaphosa, 65, the leader of the ruling African National Congress party since December, was the only candidate nominated during a session of the South African Parliament.
Some lawmakers in the National Assembly in Cape Town greeted the announcement on Ramaphosa, though members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party walked out of the chamber in protest during the debate
Ramaphosa’s Uganda Businesses Revealed
A chart showing major businesses that South Africa new President Cyril Ramaphosa has interests in.
He is one of South Africa’s richest men,with an estimated wealth of R6.4 billion ($550 million)
Ramaphosa swapped politics for a lucrative foray into business in his earlier life, using his union connections and becoming one of the richest men in the country.
His interests in businesses across South Africa have him also having majority stake in South African businesses that operate in Uganda.
These businesses include Alexander Forbes,Liberty Holdings-Both insurance firms, Standard Bank which owns part of Stanbic Bank in Uganda, Advertising agency TBWA- which runs the MTN advertising account, MTN Group and Seacom, one of the biggest internet services re-seller for businesses in the country.
Others include Coca-Cola and Unilever who are FMCG operators with strategic presence in Uganda.
In his role as a businessman, Ramaphosa is a member of the Coca Cola Company International Advisory Board as well as the Unilever Africa Advisory Council. He was also the first deputy chairman of the Common Wealth Business Council.
Farmer who took Ankole Cattle to South Africa
During a visit to Uganda in 2004, Ramaphosa became interested in the Ankole Cattle breed.
Because of inadequate disease control measures in Uganda, the South African government denied him permission to import any of the breed. Instead, Ramaphosa purchased 43 cows from Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and shipped them to Kenya.
There, the cows were artificially inseminated, the embryos removed and shipped to South Africa, they were transferred to cows and then quarantined for two months. As of August 2017 Ramaphosa had 100 Ankole breeding cows at his Ntaba Nyoni farm in Mpumalanga
In 2017 Ramaphosa co-wrote a book on the breed, Cattle of the Ages, Stories and Portraits of the Ankole Cattle of Southern Africa
Keeping wealth in the family
Ramaphosa is a very private person and not much is known about his personal life.
Ramaphosa had previously been married to businesswoman Nomazizi Mtshotshisa, but the couple divorced. He later married Tshepo Motsepe, the sister of South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe.
Ramaphosa has four children. He owns a R30,000,000 luxury mansion at the foot of Lion’s Head in Cape Town.
Ramaphosa is known to be one of the richest people in South Africa, with an estimated net worth of more than $450,000,000 and has appeared in financial magazines such as Forbes Africa and Bloomberg
Ramaphosa is also the founder of the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation.
