President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone’s vision to deliver Sierra Leoneans from poverty is embedded deep within his national agenda for change. The President hoped to achieve this through capacity building of the country’s human resources aimed at national development and prosperity and a transparent and accountable government administration to the people of Sierra Leone.

The Offices of Diaspora Affairs (ODA) and Open Government Initiative (OGI) have been established to fulfil the President’s vision. Whilst ODA is aimed at filling critical capacity gaps in all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), OGI is aimed at improving citizenry civic competency.
 
For capacity building, the president has identified the critical capacity gaps in all the MDAs and hence tapped into the resources of Sierra Leonean living abroad to fulfil his vision of national development. Through the appointment of Dr. Michel Sho-Sawyer in ODA the President strongly believes his goal of bringing Sierra Leonean experts from the Diaspora to fill these critical positions in the MDAs would be fulfilled. And the young Dr. Sho-Sawyer wasted no time in carrying out the President’s mandate. He attended his first Diaspora summit in South Africa , where he sold the President’s vision to the attendees. There, he echoed the President’s identified critical capacity gaps in these MDAs and went straight to work in filling them.
 
The ODA has organized two job fairs so far to bring Sierra Leoneans attention to the vacancies in the country and to identify qualified Sierra Leoneans for the critical gaps positions in the MDAs. The ODA team took part in the widely publicised NAACP job fair in the United States, which did not only give opportunity to Sierra Leoneans in the United States to apply for jobs in Sierra Leone through the Diaspora Office, but also exposed them to employers in the United States. The Diaspora Initiative also organized another job fair in Sierra Leone aimed at exposing Diasporans already on the ground to potential employers.
 
The mandate of the ODA did not end with just filling critical capacity gaps in the MDAs, but to also boost the private sector by ensuring that Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora invest in the private sector. One area that the office is focussing on is the remittances from abroad. It is estimated that Sierra Leonean transfers over five hundred million dollars into the country though most of the money go through the informal sector as oppose to the formal sector. The office of Diaspora Affairs saw the need for these remittances to be channelled through the formal sector and hence made a trip to the Diaspora with the then Minister of Presidential and Public Affairs, Alhaji Alpha Kanu alongside top Executives from major banks to address Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora about the need to channel their remittances through the banking system.
 
With hands on deck to push Dr. Koroma’s sound vision for Sierra Leone , the new man at the helm of affairs in the noble Ministry of Presidential and Public Affairs, Minister Joseph Monor Koroma has last Friday made a humble plea calling on banking executives in Sierra Leone to be proactive enough in attracting investment in the country.
 
Mr. Joseph Koroma made the appeal while addressing bank officials of Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, Central Bank of Sierra Leone, First International Bank, Rokel Commercial Bank, Standard Charted Bank, Access Bank, Eco Bank, and a host of other financial institutions that were present at the interactive meeting organized by the ministry in partnership with ODA.
 
The Presidential Affairs Minister said, “For Sierra Leone to be ready for business in any form, the banks would have to take the lead.” Highlighting the huge task the ODA is currently charged with, he called upon banking firms in the country to work in close collaboration with the ODA unite to actualize President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma’s agenda for change.
 
Mr. Koroma used the forum to implore all and sundry to join hands and participate actively in pushing President Koroma’s agenda for change calling on all to be fully involved, especially with the huge task in the hands of the Diaspora unit, adding that in spite of the fact that there are many Sierra Leoneans out there, they are still part of the socioeconomic dispensation at home so “we all need to come onboard, work hard for national development and move our country forward”.
 
He further stated, through the Diaspora we can build our nation. Yet it is estimated that half a billion of the money coming to Sierra Leone are from remittances that do not reflect on the country’s national economy. Nonetheless, the indicators of 60% to 70% dependence show a national threat, thus reiterating that the banks should start working proactively for the formation of a proper strategic framework that will formalize remittances.
 
On behalf of bank officials, Dr. Ibrahim Stevens from the Financial Sector Development Strategy Plan of Central Bank of Sierra Leone said, “We need banking supervision financial system to increase access to affordable finance.” And the strategy should aimed at maximizing operational framework, revealing the central bank programmes and implementing financial regulations, since the estimate got from remittances are very small.  
 
The minister called upon government to put measures in place for a liberalized market with a broad scope of security system and increase access to finance.
 
On his part, the Director of Diaspora Affairs, Dr. Sho-Sawyer, in his welcome courtesies, described the financial sector as an area where government aims at boosting the private sector as a way of involving Diasporans in the agenda for national development. This is why the outreach and public relations team in the office of DA in Freetown is prepared to work in collaboration with partners.