Kigoma North MP Zitto Kabwe, follow the Parliament committee on Infrastructure debate at Pius Msekwa hall in Dodoma on Tuesday to discussing the problem faced the sector the meeting attended with transportation stakeholder, government officials and MPs. PHOTO\EDWIN MJWAHUZI
If you are a multinational company having trouble with governments in Africa over investment, you just phone one man called Moto Mabanga and task him to fix the problem.
In the blink of an eye, Mr Mabanga will have sorted out things for you, but for an astronomical fee, whose exact amount would depend on the nature and value of the business.
From presidents to prime ministers, millionaires to billionaires, Mr Mabanga has always fixed their problems and earned with a trust, power and millions of dollars.
He sorted out Ophir Energy in Tanzania about a decade ago when the gas exploration company from South Africa wanted the lucrative oil and gas concessions. When Vodacom was in trouble in the Democratic Republic of Congo few years ago, he took a private jet and flew to Kinshasa to fix the deal.
Fixing problems for multibillion-dollar companies and billionaires across Africa has been a veritable gold mine for Mr Mabanga in the past decade, making him one of the richest men in Southern Africa.
For years, Mr Mabanga has been known in many places across the continent, especially South Africa and the DRC, as a Congolese fixer with an affinity for fancy cars, private jets and lucrative business across the globe.
South Africa’s Daily Maverick newspaper dubbed him “a fixer with firm African National Congress (ANC) connection”.
Another South African premier newspaper, Mail& Guardian called him “a politically connected fixer”.
Here in Tanzania, Kigoma North MP Zitto Zuberi Kabwe said he was a Congolese fixer who allegedly bribed some local officials to obtain gas exploration licences for Ophir Energy.
Inside and outside Africa, Mr Mabanga, a millionaire with an estimated fortune of roughly $400 million, is identified as a Congolese currently living in South Africa.
Courtesy of his dressing style, fancy living and heavily accented Swahili, one can easily be persuaded to believe that he is indeed a Congolese who went to post-apartheid South Africa to seek greener pastures.
For reasons he has never publicly disclosed, Mr Mabanga has always refused to have his entire face photographed.
