By Byron Mutingwende
While there are certain household names when it comes to wealth in Zimbabwe, one surprising entry, the famous Sekuru Banda has turned the tables and occupied the uppermost position as the richest but humblest man in the country if not on the continent.
The recently established Trumpet, which works in the mould of Forbes has used an indicator of measuring wealth that is not familiar to many Zimbabweans who are used to considering aspects like number of posh cars or houses and fashion.
Speaking to Spiked Online Media, Trumpet representative, Jefferson Oswald, who is based in Switzerland revealed that his organisation undertook a thorough investigation into the lifestyles of famous and rich Zimbabweans like Phillip Chiyangwa, Genius Kadungure, Strive Masiyiwa, Emmanuel Makandiwa and Walter Magaya among others.
“What I realised among the so-called richest people in Zimbabwe is their penchant for fame and popularity. No wonder why popular young prophet Passion Java is always seen in America showing off expensive clothes and lavish parties. The idea is to attract people’s attention in order to be considered rich.
“That is not the case with man-of-the-moment Sekuru Banda who loves do his things quietly and secretly. We tracked the popular traditional healer to Arab countries like Dubai where our investigations revealed that he is a major shareholder in many oil-rich companies. Oil is one of the highest paying businesses in the world so when we calculated Sekuru Banda’s net worth in United States dollar value, we estimated that he might personally be around an estimated $5 billion worth of assets. One can not tell the man’s wealth because he chooses to remain humble and down to earth,” Oswald said.
Apart from oil, Sekuru Banda has interests in gold mining and commodity broking in some European countries. He has some business partners in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany to just to mention a few.
All the above enterprises exclude his greatest gift as a traditional healer where he attracts people from all walks of life who come to him for spiritual help to grow businesses, to restore broken marriages, to restore lost goods and property and to be treated of various ailments like sexually transmitted diseases, cancer and TB among others.