Editor, RE: “Diaspora investment forum due” (The New Times, November 11). Any initiatives and schemes that expand investment avenues back home for members of the diaspora should definitely be encouraged and supported by governments, diaspora communities and the entrepreneur class. However, as members of the diaspora have little means of determining the trustworthiness and thus reliability—on many aspects—of the various sponsors of such schemes, it is important for there to be some kind of government involvement, be it only in terms of due diligence and licensing, to remove the fear that these so-called investors may in fact be attempts a t swindling the unwary. Many will no doubt still remember cons like that of DN Internatuonal in which many Rwandans (almost all locally-based) lost their savings or found themselves in bank debt for houses that were no longer their own. People who live far from their investments are to be located, need an even higher degree of assurance than those who can closely follow the progress of projects in which they are invested—which is why government skin in the game becomes a critical ingredient, as it provides a measure of confidence that there will be some kind of official oversight and thus ordinary investors will not be fleeced by the unscrupulous. We need an active government monitoring and effective supervision of all these schemes to avoid situations where members of our diaspora end up falling victim to the wiles of briefcase conmen. They have no way of separating the genuine investors from fly-by-night snake-oil salesmen. Mwene Kalinda
