“I don’t believe in aid”
This bold statement was made in 2023 by the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, H.E. President Maada Bio, during an interview. He also added that the foreign aid compromises Sierra Leone’s freedom and independence, due to the strings attached to it. According to the World Bank data from 2021, official development assistance accounted for 17.4 percent of Sierra Leone’s gross national income, significantly higher than the average of 3.3 percent for sub-Saharan African countries.
In Uganda, the Parliament recently passed, in May 2023, a revised Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which criminalizes homosexual conduct. Aid agencies immediately responded with warnings that the signing of this bill into law by President Museveni would result in a reduction in aid and a termination of supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, a key medication necessary for people living with AIDS.
This reaction was in line with a previous reaction by European governments in 2014 when President Museveni introduced harsh anti-gay laws. The governments of the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark as well as the World Bank curtailed their aid donations to Uganda following the enactment of that law. H.E. President Museveni defiantly informed donor nations that Uganda is a sovereign nation and warned against foreign nations trying to control Uganda and Ugandans. According to the World Bank data from 2021, official development assistance accounted for 7.2 percent of Uganda’s gross national income.
In 2017, Ghanaian President H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo caused quite a stir in international and local circles when he announced a vision of “Ghana Beyond Aid”. This vision was later expanded to a vision of “Africa Beyond Aid” by President Akufo-Addo in 2019 as he addressed a group of World Bank and IMF Governors in Accra.
“Since assuming the reins of Office two and a half years ago, I have been advocating for a Ghana Beyond Aid,” he said, “because nobody needs to spell it out to us that the economic transformation we desire will not come through aid.”
Unfortunately, the net official development assistance into Ghana, which was US$1.07billion in 2018, grew to US$1.23billion in 2021. In 2023 Ghana requested a US$3 billion IMF bailout loan to shore up its shrinking foreign reserves after they had shrunk by 50percent since 2021 due to the central bank’s efforts to defend the cedi. To secure this loan, Ghana’s leaders had to agree to tough economic conditions including raising taxes. It was a humiliating capitulation that reinforced the opinion among some Ghanaians that the nation, despite achieving political independence 66 years ago, is not yet truly independent.
In each of these three examples we have leaders being pressured to accept perspectives of foreign entities because they are recipients of aid, and we see the leaders not enjoying the experience.
I was taught a valuable lesson many years ago…HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE.
If African nations want to be truly independent, we must learn to become financially independent. We can not describe ourselves as independent countries or insist on doing our own thing and following our own policies and whims when we can not balance our own checkbook or finance our own expenditures. Of course Western powers influence and direct policies through aid!
Which one of you would willingly give money to finance your cousin’s household and then refrain from telling him how to run his affairs if his affairs did not align with your priorities? Which one of us would hesitate to tell a relative how to treat his children if we believed he was abusing them and we were the ones paying for their school fees? The notion that donor countries should not influence recipient countries’ policies and policy implementations is farcical.
When you want your parents to stop telling you what to do, when you can go out and what time you should come home after a party, you find yourself work to do, earn money, stop living in their house and asking them for money. When you become financially independent, your parents stop telling you what to do because they know that you don’t have to adhere to their wishes. They may suggest, knowing that you have the right to ignore or do something else.
When African country leaders/governments want to stop Western countries from telling them what to do, they will cut their expenditures to live within their means (like Thomas Sankara did), inspire and monitor every citizen to pay taxes, and invest in the physical and human infrastructure of their country to enhance the productivity of their citizenry.
It is always tough to leave the comfortable confines of one’s parent’s house. Big rooms, nice carpet, AC units, big backyard, are tempting and difficult to eschew in favor of the one-bedroom apartment without AC that a young man may have to go to in order to become independent. As long as we insist on living plush when we don’t earn plush, Daddy and Mummy will always tell us what to do.
This challenge is not limited to presidential or political leaders. Many African entrepreneurs today have fallen into the trap of becoming “donor-preneurs”, applying for and waiting on grant funding to finance their fledgling companies. While there is sometimes a place for grant funding to be instrumental in getting a company off the ground, it is lazy capital that promotes lazy leadership.
And when the donors give you money it will usually come with strings attached and those strings may take you farther from your vision than you need to get. If you and your business idea are worth investing in, you should be able to attract investment capital. Investment capital is money that demands performance from you and the business and will challenge you to discipline yourself and your team to be prudent about the expenditures and decisions that you make for the long term benefit of your business.
Dear African leader, here are three steps to follow as you seek to make your country financially independent or your business profitable:
- Cut down your personal expenses: Whether you are the leader of a country or the leader of a business, your spending habits and what you cost the organization reverberates throughout the organization. If you spend lavishly your team will take a cue from you to believe that lavish spending is acceptable. It is disheartening to see an African President charter a jet to go to a conference and be accompanied by almost a hundred people when their country has to beg every year for money to fund the largesse that is hidden in plain sight for all to see.
When your company or country is unprofitable or financially-dependent, cut down your expenses to below what your closest advisors say is the minimum because they will hardly ever advise you to cut to the point where their personal cash flow is affected and they are part of your entourage. Cut deep and show the people that you lead that you are willing to sacrifice for their welfare.
2. Cut down your government/company expenditures: After you have cut down your personal and entourage expenses, cut down the expenses of your government or business. Where possible, put your ministers or executive team on variable compensation plans so that they are incentivized to produce tangible results and are financially punished when they do not. You will be amazed at how focused this will make your team! (after they have grumbled for a little while).
Make them earn their perks by performing in ways that show up on the bottom/budget line. If any of them threaten to leave because you are making them earn their keep, let them go. They are committed enough to the vision or they do not believe in their ability to deliver the results that your government or company needs. Either way, as painful as it may be, your administration is better off without them.
- Get active about generating revenue: Too many African governments take the easy way out when it comes to raising revenue: raise tax rates on the segment of the economy that is already paying the highest amount of taxes. This is lazy governance and in today’s borderless world, it may lead to capital flight.
As the leader of a country, ensure that every adult citizen pays some amount of tax. This is a key step to generate ideal civic behavior and making every citizen adopt the posture of ownership of the government. If you are the leader of a business, engage every employee in the business in thinking about how to generate revenue for the business.
Revenue generation may be part of the job description for the sales team, but every employee in a business is a potential salesperson for the business. As the leader, engage them to inspire them to become the best salesperson they can be for the company. As the leader of a country, engage the citizens to each pay something into the government so that the government will be truly theirs.
From 1983 to 1987, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso showed African Presidents the roadmap to making their country financially independent. He cut down his own expenses, insisting that his salary be kept at US$450 per month and refused to use the AC units in his office, saying he felt guilty about it because most of his citizens could not afford AC units. He cut down his government’s expenses, selling off fleets of large exotic government vehicles and going instead for cheaper Renaults as government vehicles. He engaged the citizenry to become tax payers and producers of value, revitalizing agriculture to the point that shortly before his death, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in food production.
For Africa to achieve the vision of an Africa beyond aid, you, African leader, have to take the lead.
Africans are waiting.
Leadership Made in Africa
He who pays the piper calls the tune
“I don’t believe in aid”
This bold statement was made in 2023 by the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, H.E. President Maada Bio, during an interview. He also added that the foreign aid compromises Sierra Leone’s freedom and independence, due to the strings attached to it. According to the World Bank data from 2021, official development assistance accounted for 17.4 percent of Sierra Leone’s gross national income, significantly higher than the average of 3.3 percent for sub-Saharan African countries.
In Uganda, the Parliament recently passed, in May 2023, a revised Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which criminalizes homosexual conduct. Aid agencies immediately responded with warnings that the signing of this bill into law by President Museveni would result in a reduction in aid and a termination of supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, a key medication necessary for people living with AIDS.
This reaction was in line with a previous reaction by European governments in 2014 when President Museveni introduced harsh anti-gay laws. The governments of the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark as well as the World Bank curtailed their aid donations to Uganda following the enactment of that law. H.E. President Museveni defiantly informed donor nations that Uganda is a sovereign nation and warned against foreign nations trying to control Uganda and Ugandans. According to the World Bank data from 2021, official development assistance accounted for 7.2 percent of Uganda’s gross national income.
In 2017, Ghanaian President H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo caused quite a stir in international and local circles when he announced a vision of “Ghana Beyond Aid”. This vision was later expanded to a vision of “Africa Beyond Aid” by President Akufo-Addo in 2019 as he addressed a group of World Bank and IMF Governors in Accra.
“Since assuming the reins of Office two and a half years ago, I have been advocating for a Ghana Beyond Aid,” he said, “because nobody needs to spell it out to us that the economic transformation we desire will not come through aid.”
Unfortunately, the net official development assistance into Ghana, which was US$1.07billion in 2018, grew to US$1.23billion in 2021. In 2023 Ghana requested a US$3 billion IMF bailout loan to shore up its shrinking foreign reserves after they had shrunk by 50percent since 2021 due to the central bank’s efforts to defend the cedi. To secure this loan, Ghana’s leaders had to agree to tough economic conditions including raising taxes. It was a humiliating capitulation that reinforced the opinion among some Ghanaians that the nation, despite achieving political independence 66 years ago, is not yet truly independent.
In each of these three examples we have leaders being pressured to accept perspectives of foreign entities because they are recipients of aid, and we see the leaders not enjoying the experience.
I was taught a valuable lesson many years ago…HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE.
If African nations want to be truly independent, we must learn to become financially independent. We can not describe ourselves as independent countries or insist on doing our own thing and following our own policies and whims when we can not balance our own checkbook or finance our own expenditures. Of course Western powers influence and direct policies through aid!
Which one of you would willingly give money to finance your cousin’s household and then refrain from telling him how to run his affairs if his affairs did not align with your priorities? Which one of us would hesitate to tell a relative how to treat his children if we believed he was abusing them and we were the ones paying for their school fees? The notion that donor countries should not influence recipient countries’ policies and policy implementations is farcical.
When you want your parents to stop telling you what to do, when you can go out and what time you should come home after a party, you find yourself work to do, earn money, stop living in their house and asking them for money. When you become financially independent, your parents stop telling you what to do because they know that you don’t have to adhere to their wishes. They may suggest, knowing that you have the right to ignore or do something else.
When African country leaders/governments want to stop Western countries from telling them what to do, they will cut their expenditures to live within their means (like Thomas Sankara did), inspire and monitor every citizen to pay taxes, and invest in the physical and human infrastructure of their country to enhance the productivity of their citizenry.
It is always tough to leave the comfortable confines of one’s parent’s house. Big rooms, nice carpet, AC units, big backyard, are tempting and difficult to eschew in favor of the one-bedroom apartment without AC that a young man may have to go to in order to become independent. As long as we insist on living plush when we don’t earn plush, Daddy and Mummy will always tell us what to do.
This challenge is not limited to presidential or political leaders. Many African entrepreneurs today have fallen into the trap of becoming “donor-preneurs”, applying for and waiting on grant funding to finance their fledgling companies. While there is sometimes a place for grant funding to be instrumental in getting a company off the ground, it is lazy capital that promotes lazy leadership.
And when the donors give you money it will usually come with strings attached and those strings may take you farther from your vision than you need to get. If you and your business idea are worth investing in, you should be able to attract investment capital. Investment capital is money that demands performance from you and the business and will challenge you to discipline yourself and your team to be prudent about the expenditures and decisions that you make for the long term benefit of your business.
Dear African leader, here are three steps to follow as you seek to make your country financially independent or your business profitable:
- Cut down your personal expenses: Whether you are the leader of a country or the leader of a business, your spending habits and what you cost the organization reverberates throughout the organization. If you spend lavishly your team will take a cue from you to believe that lavish spending is acceptable. It is disheartening to see an African President charter a jet to go to a conference and be accompanied by almost a hundred people when their country has to beg every year for money to fund the largesse that is hidden in plain sight for all to see.
When your company or country is unprofitable or financially-dependent, cut down your expenses to below what your closest advisors say is the minimum because they will hardly ever advise you to cut to the point where their personal cash flow is affected and they are part of your entourage. Cut deep and show the people that you lead that you are willing to sacrifice for their welfare.
- Cut down your government/company expenditures: After you have cut down your personal and entourage expenses, cut down the expenses of your government or business. Where possible, put your ministers or executive team on variable compensation plans so that they are incentivized to produce tangible results and are financially punished when they do not. You will be amazed at how focused this will make your team! (after they have grumbled for a little while).
Make them earn their perks by performing in ways that show up on the bottom/budget line. If any of them threaten to leave because you are making them earn their keep, let them go. They are committed enough to the vision or they do not believe in their ability to deliver the results that your government or company needs. Either way, as painful as it may be, your administration is better off without them.
- Get active about generating revenue: Too many African governments take the easy way out when it comes to raising revenue: raise tax rates on the segment of the economy that is already paying the highest amount of taxes. This is lazy governance and in today’s borderless world, it may lead to capital flight.
As the leader of a country, ensure that every adult citizen pays some amount of tax. This is a key step to generate ideal civic behavior and making every citizen adopt the posture of ownership of the government. If you are the leader of a business, engage every employee in the business in thinking about how to generate revenue for the business.
Revenue generation may be part of the job description for the sales team, but every employee in a business is a potential salesperson for the business. As the leader, engage them to inspire them to become the best salesperson they can be for the company. As the leader of a country, engage the citizens to each pay something into the government so that the government will be truly theirs.
From 1983 to 1987, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso showed African Presidents the roadmap to making their country financially independent. He cut down his own expenses, insisting that his salary be kept at US$450 per month and refused to use the AC units in his office, saying he felt guilty about it because most of his citizens could not afford AC units. He cut down his government’s expenses, selling off fleets of large exotic government vehicles and going instead for cheaper Renaults as government vehicles. He engaged the citizenry to become tax payers and producers of value, revitalizing agriculture to the point that shortly before his death, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in food production.
For Africa to achieve the vision of an Africa beyond aid, you, African leader, have to take the lead.
Africans are waiting.
