Nigeria’s 36 states have estimated their total indebtedness, including salaries owed workers at N658 billion, about $3.3 billion.
The money appears a big deal to the cash strapped governors, but not to Amancio Ortega, the Spanish billionaire, Europe’s richest man and second richest man in the world.
Just on Monday, he added $2.3 billion to his fortune, as shares in Inditex, the Zara owner and world’s largest clothing retailer, rose 3.9 percent.
The Spanish billionaire’s gain was $500 million more than the combined increase recorded by everyone else among the world’s 10 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The rise caps a surging performance for Ortega in the first half of this year. His fortune has risen $11 billion, to $72 billion, an 18 percent rise, compared to the slight decline in the fortunes of Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, and Warren Buffett, the third-wealthiest person on earth.
While Ortega still trails Gates’s $86 billion net worth, Ortega’s fortune has increased 80 percent in the past three years—double the growth rate of the Microsoft co-founder.
*Reported by Bloomberg