By Frank Kamuntu
The Pan-African Pyramid hosted its prestigious PAP Global Awards in a dazzling event at Fairway Hotel, Kampala on August 31, 2024.
During the ceremony, renowned Ugandan tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia, Chairman of Ruparelia Group of Companies, was honored with the ‘LIFETIME ACHIEVER (BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR)’ award. Ruparelia expressed his gratitude to PAP Speaker and Chairman Andrew Irumba Katusabe for acknowledging his significant impact on Africa’s development. But what ranked Sudhir the best among hundreds of business moguls in Uganda?
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H.E Dr Sudhir Ruparelia is a Ugandan business magnate and investor. He is the Chairman and majority shareholder in the Ruparelia Group of companies. His investments are mainly in the banking, insurance, education, broadcasting, real estate, floriculture and hotels and resorts sectors.
Ruparelia was born in Kabatoro, Kasese District in the Western Region of Uganda to an upper-middle-class Indian Gujarati family. Ruparelia fled to the United Kingdom with his parents in 1972 to seek asylum at the age of 16, when then Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada expelled all Asians from Uganda.
As a young man in England, Ruparelia successfully established a number of small businesses before returning to Uganda in the 1980s to take advantage of the improving political and business stability. In 1985, at the age of 29, he started Ruparelia Group as a small trading company with US$ 25,000 he returned with from UK as savings accumulated from several odd jobs he did, including working in factories, Supermarkets, Butcheries and as a taxi driver in UK.
Sudhir became Uganda’s first billionaire in 2014 and was East Africa’s richest person, Africa’s 28th and his Crane Bank was one of Uganda’s top three Banks in ranking, after Centenary and Absa Banks. As of November 2023, Sudhir is the wealthiest person in Uganda, with an estimated net worth of over US$1.2 billion.
In February 2020, Ruparelia was appointed the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Nepal to Uganda, by the president of Nepal, Bidhya Devi Bhandari. Sudhir now owns the largest domestic residence in East Africa with 130,000 sq metres.
In 2007, Ruparelia was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in business, by the Uganda Pentecostal University, in recognition of his contribution to Uganda’s economic growth.
On October 9, 2013, Sudhir was awarded a Golden Jubilee Presidential Medal by President Museveni in recognition of his contribution to the growth of business and industry in Uganda as an industrialist. Having been expelled, Sudhir could have chosen to invest elsewhere, after all, he had got his Capital in UK not Africa, but his love for Africa, having been born in Kasese, Western Uganda, he chose to come back and invest at home.
Together with his ever-supportive wife Jyostna Ruparelia, they have three children, Rajiv Ruparelia, Meera Ruparelia and Sheena Ruparelia.
Ruparelia is among the top taxpayers in Uganda, according to URA and employs over 10000 Africans directly and indirectly thereby changing the lives of thousands. The above and very many other reasons explain why PAP awarded Dr Sudhir.Â
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