By Amadu Massallay, Dallas, Texas, USA.

Sierra Leonean nationals in the Diaspora are primed to raise 150 million US dollars for the government in less than 12 months under the auspices of an initiative called DENI. The intent is to target 500,000 ordinary Sierra Leoneans (less than 10% of the population) to participate in DENI at the rate of $300 per person to raise the $150 million in exchange for ownership of income generating asset shares in selected parastatals slated for privatization - thus keeping family jewels in the family instead of selling them to foreigners. This is doable considering that the Sierra Leone Government is asset-rich but cash-poor. Yet, Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora are sending home well over $300 million in remittances per year.

In a nutshell, DENI is an opportunity for the Government of Sierra Leone to expand its external resource mobilization efforts in a hitherto untapped source and realize $150 million US dollars in 1 year - an amount that is not a loan and is not a grant. There will be no strings attached, no humiliating conditionalities and no donor interference. The program will be totally owned by the Sierra Leone Government and its nationals. All this in exchange for ownership (in individual shares) of parastatals slated for privatization. That is what the President talks about whenever and wherever he travels abroad and meets with Sierra Leoneans. Now is the time to turn His Excellency’s rhetoric into action.

With the economic development plans relying largely on grants and loans from donors, where else would Sierra Leone get that kind of money without conditionalities except from its own nationals abroad who value the motherland? These nationals are looking forward to a new and invigorated public-private partnership (PPP) that the Koroma government has called for. As one of them (in the UK) put it to us in a recent telephone conversation, “We have sent money home when donors abandoned the government, we have sent money home in the middle of a civil war, we have sent money home when there was no functional bank and we have sent money home even when there was no government. Such is the ingenuity of Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora in their determination to send money home to their loved ones.”

And as another one of the Diasporans (in the US) put it in another telephone conversation, “Remittances stimulate the economy by increasing currency flow and consumer purchasing power. These are literally life saving injections, but we can’t help everybody individually in the whole country going that route. If we could, we would, but that is not possible. Instead, when we help our country economically through an ingenious program such as DENI and the economy improves, the effects spill over to lift EVERYBODY IN THE COUNTRY. The poverty reduction implications are obvious. That is what our initiative is all about. It is the next logical step to remittances.”

All these strong sentiments emanate from an ingenious program developed by Africans in America called DENI: Direct Expatriate Nationals Investment. The DENI program will mobilize Sierra Leoneans to pool their remittances to purchase one or more of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) slated for privatization, resulting in widespread ownership of these assets by the nationals of the country and the reinvestment of their dividend earnings ploughed back into the economy, leading to massive economic stimulation, accelerated growth and poverty reduction. DENI is a one-of-a-kind initiative that will sustain Sierra Leone for generations.

For the first time ever, the Koroma government is ready to seriously engage these patriots who have always been there for the motherland in good times as well as in bad times. A State House Lawn Party will be hosted for them on Saturday January 3, 2009. The Sierra Leonean Diaspora constitutes the most indispensable catalyst in the accelerated development of the motherland because they have a permanent vested interest in the well-being of their people. This ever growing Sierra Leonean Diaspora is poised for this unprecedented role by virtue of its ever growing remittances which are already a significant portion of our GNP. The volume of their remittances now exceeds all forms of foreign aid combined. It is estimated that Sierra Leoneans abroad send home well over $300 million in remittances each year. We, as Sierra Leoneans both at home and abroad, are only limited by our creativity in terms of how best to exploit this external resource of private funds. DENI is one such example of creativity designed to enhance the development impact of remittances that Africans in the Diaspora have embraced wholeheartedly.

It is now widely acknowledged that Africa’s development (more so Sierra Leone’s) is linked to its ability to attract investment capital in terms of both money and skilled people who are technologically savvy and who can develop a robust private sector in Sierra Leone. The challenge facing Africa in general and Sierra Leone in particular, which DENI addresses, is to raise the level of private investment to promote development, particularly in infrastructure and technology. But foreign direct investors (FDI) are not going to invest in Africa if Africans themselves are not investing in their own economies. So, Sierra Leoneans both at home and abroad must lead the way and show that we have full confidence in our economy. In view of this, the Sierra Leonean Diaspora-driven DENI initiative for the motherland is highly commendable and augurs well for the future of our beloved country. This is the only reliable way to create jobs and wealth thereby eradicating poverty. Foreign Direct Investment follows a modicum of development, it does not precede it. Sierra Leone won’t attract a critical mass of FDI until it achieves an appreciable level of development. DENI puts the nationals of the country in the “driver’s seat” under the premise that development is a do-it-yourself proposition. No one can develop Africa but Africans themselves. And no one can develop Sierra Leone but Sierra Leoneans themselves.

The Sierra Leone Network is immensely gratified that until DENI came along, no program had ever been designed with this kind of enormous potential to bring about a long overdue paradigm shift in the economic development process in Sierra Leone in particular and in Africa in general. The DENI proposal was originally designed as a Debt Relief and Poverty Reduction program for Africa but has since morphed into Enhanced DENI as a Poverty Reduction and External Resource Mobilization Program for countries that have received massive debt cancellation from the HIPC Program like Africa has. With the changing international politics (thanks to the G8 Summit 2005 in the UK), debt can be cancelled with the stroke of the pen, but poverty cannot be cancelled by the stroke of the pen. Hence, the unassailable and enduring value of DENI. Let us do this together fellow Sierra Leoneans and become the first country in Africa to truly mobilize their nationals into an unprecedented wave of the future.

* The writer, Amadu Massally, is President of Sierra Leone Network, member, MCC Presidential Task Force and Global Coordinator, DENI - Sierra Leone.