REVEALED: Mkapa family owns Bank M building
THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam
IT has now been revealed that the building housing the registered office of an upcoming new financial institution, Bank M (Tanzania) Limited, in Dar es Salaam is owned by former president Benjamin Mkapa and his wife Mrs Anna Mkapa.
The two-storeyed office building (pictured) is located at Number 8 Ocean Road, right adjacent to the official residence of the former president and first lady (inset photos) in the citys affluent Sea View area.
Our investigations show that the couple bought the property, with certificate of title number 6809, from the Tanzania Building Works in 2002.
At the time, Mr Mkapa was still the sitting president of the United Republic of Tanzania, while Mama Anna served as the countrys First Lady.
President Benjamin William Mkapa and First Lady Anna Mkapa served in the highest office in the land from 1995 to 2005, when he concluded his second and final presidential term.
The inconspicuous building in a quiet neighbourhood of Upanga is now listed as the registered office of Bank M (Tanzania) Limited, a new bank in the pipeline which is understood to have some rather big-name members of the local business community as shareholders through their respective companies.
The bank, with an initial share capital of 6.5bn/-, is in the final stages of being launched after a registration process that started in February this year.
In the meantime, there are few signs of its pending arrival, with only a hardly visible signpost on the front boundary wall of the building where it is housed, and now revealed to be owned by the Mkapa family.
The signpost has the simple letter M printed on an austere logo.
According to our investigations, registered owners of the bank are Jayant Kumar Patel, alias Jeetu Patel, of Noble Azania Investments Limited; Vimal Mehta of Negus Holdings Limited; and Fidha Rashid, a prominent real estate developer and car dealer with Africarriers Limited.
Nimrod Mkono of the respected Dar es Salaam law firm Mkono & Co. Advocates, is also listed as one of the main shareholders of the bank through one of his companies, Equity & Allied Limited.
There are also two listed minority shareholders in the name of Sanjeev Kumar, a local banker, and Bhaskaran Nair, described as a business executive.
Records show that by February this year, the shareholding structure of the bank as officially filed was as follows: Negus Holdings Ltd (1.3bn/-), Noble Azania Investments Ltd (1.3bn/-), Africarriers Ltd (1.3bn/-), Equity and Allied Limited (1.3bn/-), Mr Kumar (650m/-) and Mr Nair (650m/-).
When contacted by THISDAY and asked to give more details about the banks shareholding structure, registration and licensing status, and other details, shareholder Jeetu Patel declined comment.
Instead, the Noble Azania Investments Limited representative referred our queries to Mkono, who has so far not been available for comment.
Apart from his status as a top local lawyer and representative of Equity and Allied Limited company in the new banks shareholding structure, Mkono is also the current member of parliament for the Musoma Rural Constituency, on a CCM ticket.
Efforts by THISDAY to contact the governor of the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), Dr Daudi Ballali, to confirm whether or not Bank M has been or will be issued with a formal banking licence, have also proved unsuccessful so far.
But our sources in the countrys banking sector have confirmed that the process of recruiting key staff for the new bank has been quietly proceeding, apparently in preparation of its imminent formal launch.
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