Deals

 It is very common to see leaders of developing countries visit developed countries to seek investors to develop various sectors of their economy. This I believe is a good initiative but there is a notion associated with this act that I will like to debunk. Majority of the populace are of the view that we go to beg for funds on such trips, and even some of our leaders are beginning to buy into this idea.
To begin with I will like for us to establish this fact, WE DO NOT GO TO BEG. Begging isn’t only shameful to us as a people but it also contradicts our claim of sovereignty. Moreover how can we say we go to beg when the foreign investors tend to gain more than the countries they invest in?
Let us be truthful to ourselves, investors aim at making profits, no firm or country will venture into a deal when they are not satisfied with the amount of risk and their potential reward, and they do well to negotiate in order to gain maximum profit. The same cannot be said about our leaders, we shout and celebrate the huge sums of money that comes into our country but how much of it actually gets to the people? We sign deals with foreign nationals which allows them to bring people from their countries to undertake the projects with the excuse that our citizens are not qualified enough, we therefore give the top and high paying positions to foreign nationals and leave positions such as laborers for our citizens.
We enter into agreements to develop agriculture, yet we only focus on just planting of crops and give investors exclusive rights to its storage, processing and export. How can we claim to have improved the life of our people when we are not even giving them the best out of deals?
There are so many contracts that we could have gained more from if we had negotiated properly. Investors are not doing us a favor by coming to our countries. We only go on those trips to showcase the opportunities in our country. Remember that even if it is a loan, we will pay back therefore the conditions attached must be favorable to the country. The era of just accepting whatever we are given is over. It is time to speak up.