Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikitia's general notability guideline. |
Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa Rwanda |
| Children | 6, including Paul Nkwaya and Richard Rujugiro[1] |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Founder, Pan-African Tobacco Group |
| Website | www.tribertrujugiro.com |
Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa is a Rwandan tobacco manufacturer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. His company, Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG), is Africa's biggest manufacturer of tobacco products and competes with British American Tobacco on the continent. Ayabatwa's personal fortune was estimated at about $200 million by Forbes in 2012 and PTG's annual profits were estimated at $250 million...[2].
His PTG produces cigarettes in many African countries and the United Arab Emirates.
Early life
Ayabatwa had a hard early life experience. He was born in Rwanda in 1940. At age 12, he lost his mother to illness and at 16 he was expelled from school by the colonial administration when he was doing Grade 8 at the age of 16 and had to fend for himself after that. When the colonial administration continued to ferment ethnic tensions between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi, the latter to which Ayabatwa belonged, he fled home as he saw no future in Rwanda. He left to live in neighbouring Burundi as a refugee at the age of 19[3].
Career and business
Employment
He landed his first job in Burundi in 1960, working for the Regional Post office that serviced communications between Rwanda and Burundi. He left this job and went to work for a petroleum-storage company, rising through the ranks to occupy a manager position at the age of 22[4].
Business career
Between 1968 and 1978, Ayabatwa's career turned successfullly into business. His first business adventure was a pickup truck he bought using his savings from the petrol company. Buying the second-hand truck, he hired a driver, and transported people and goods. At age 29, he started a bakery, with shops and supermarkets in Burundi ordering his breads. Making money here, he soon began to explore other business ventures. Realising the food shortages in Burundi, he started importing wheat, flour and salt from neighbouring countries. Armed conflicts in Tanzania disturbed his salt business but he managed to find alternative import routes in border areas occupied by anti-colonial rebel groups[5].
From there he expanded his businesses and established himself as a gold trader, a venture he later regretted as he lost all his investment. In 1974, he began importing cigarettes from Tanzania to Burundi. He found the cigarette business profitable and made it his main business focus. In 1978 he established a tobacco manufacturing plant in Burundi, called Burundi Tobacco Company[6] and another in Democratic Republic of Congo. Ayabatwa lost the Burundi plant when President Pierre Buyoya nationalised it and imprisoned Ayabatwa for three years in 1987 on charges of conspiring to overthrow his government, accusing him of funding his political opponents. He helped the Rwanda Patriotic Front defeat President Juvénal Habyarimana. He funded the Rwandan Civil War. Fleeing from prison before funding the war, Ayabatwa arrived in South Africa in 1990 and had to start from scratch to establish himself once more in a foreign country. He established Mastermind Tobacco South Africa (Pty) Ltd in East London in the Eastern Cape which built up a manufacturing plant that produced cheap cigarettes brands like Yes and Forum from Eastern Cape and supplied across South Africa, and sales increased signicantly over a short space of time[7]
Ayabatwa's tobacco empire established foodprints in other African countries and the Middle East, with him leading the Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG) as a founder and majority shareholder until he retired in 2013 and left the company to elder son Paul Nkwaya and younger son Richard Rujugiro[8][9]. Ayabatwa's personal fortune was estimated at about $200 million by Forbes in 2014 and PTG's annual profits were estimated at $250 million.
Legal battles
He was fined R250-million in 2009 by a South African High Court for defrauding the South African Revenue Service. The imposed fine was suspended for 5 years on condition that Ayabatwa swiftly pay the South African government R57-million in punishments for defrauding the tax institution, after Ayabatwa falsely represented impossibly explained cigarette packages in line of tax payments[10]
Ayabatwa never had a good relationship with any of the leaders that ruled Rwanda. His shopping complex in Rwanda, the Union Trade Centre, worth around $20million and the biggest in the country, was seized by Paul Kagame's government in 2015 and was declared an "abandoned property" because its owner, Ayabatwa, lives outside Rwanda, after a fallout with Kagame. Two years later the mall was sold at an outrageous auction for US$8 million, more than half its value. Ayabatwa went to court and in August 2022 the East African Court of Justice ruled in his favour; that the seizure of his mall was illegal. Before their fallout, Kagame and Ayabatwa were very close. Kagame's sister married Ayabatwa's cousin. Kagame's mother was taken care of by the resourced Ayabatwa throughou tafter President Milton Obote expelled all Rwandan refugees from Uganda[11][12][13]
References
- ↑ PTG founder retires, PR Newswire, 3 January 2013
- ↑ Meet the richest tobacco man, Forbes, 1 January 2014
- ↑ From refugee to Pan-African industrialist, AllAfrica.com, 10 March 2013
- ↑ Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, Fox Chronicle, 4 August 2021
- ↑ [https://billionaires.africa/2022/05/24/5-multimillionaires-from-rwanda-youve-never-heard-of/ Multi-millionaires from Rwanda], Billionaires.Africa, 24 May 2022
- ↑ Ayabatwa celebrates 60 years in business, AP News, 2 December 2020
- ↑ Ayabatwa: Rwandan refugee who became billionaire, Tstga.com
- ↑ PTG founder retires, PR Newswire, 3 January 2013
- ↑ Pan-African Tobacco Group founder to retire, Tobacco Reporter, 7 January 2013. Retrived 11 November 2023
- ↑ Sars bust Lifman, News24, 12 April 2015
- ↑ "I can't fight Kagame," says Tribert Ayabatwa, New Vision, 18 March 2019
- ↑ [1], PR Newswire, 6 September 2022
- ↑ Tribert Ayabatwa vs Daily Maverick, Press Council, 3 April 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2023
External links
This article "Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace.