Trailblazing Inyatsi treks deeper into Africa

By Ntombi Mhlongo

Eswatini-founded Inyatsi Group Holdings is making significant inroads throughout the African continent with investments and projects worth E3.7 billion currently being rolled out in West, Eastern, and Southern Africa.

The Group’s expansion throughout the continent is part of its vision of becoming Africa’s Leading Integrated Business Partner. The expansion cuts across all spectrums of the business world. The latest is a more than E2.5 billion investment in Zambia’s fourth mobile operator, Zedmobile.

The huge financial undertaking will spur the republic’s economic growth and further cut down its unemployment rate to below 13 per cent. Inyatsi Group Holdings is not new in the mobile telecommunications space as one of its proprietors, Michelo Shakantu was the brains behind the establishment of Eswatini Mobile, the Kingdom’s first mobile operator wholly owned by emaSwati.

For setting up Eswatini Mobile, Shakantu told Eswatini Financial Times that they (he and his late business partner Victor Gamedze) needed about E1.2 billion capital injection. Based on that, the investment for Zedmobile will be significantly higher, given that the Zambian project will include the setting up of network infrastructure that will offer 5G/4G/3G/2G, data services and mobile voice services. It’s a continuation of the diversification and turning Eswatini into an export-oriented economy. It is Eswatini’s skills that have made these investments and projects possible, said the Inyatsi Executive Chairman Michelo Shakantu.

With the Zedmobile investment, Inyatsi will impact over 7 000 livelihoods through direct and indirect employment. Zedmobile proprietors announced that over 1 000 job opportunities would be availed (500 direct and 500 indirect).

Over and above this positive economic impact, small and large-scale suppliers in the mobile telecommunication value chain will also benefit from this project. The group prides itself on being an employer of choice and significantly impacting the lives of the people where it operates.

In Eswatini, Inyatsi Group Holdings is directly employing 3 227 which translates to 22 589 livelihoods dependent on the company when using the country’s dependency ratio of 1:7. With the setting up of Zedmobile, Inyatsi Group Holdings would soon be supporting over 29 500 in two African economies through its investee companies.

In addition to the positive impact the company is having through its greenfield investments, it is also aggressively invigorating other African economies through the construction projects it is currently undertaking.

Through its multinational Inyatsi Construction, the company is operating in nine other African countries. Inyatsi Construction continues to fly Eswatini’s flag high by scoring multi-million projects across the continent in line with its vision of becoming Africa’s Leading Integrated Business Partner. Read More