The Nation Newspaper

Tag: imports

  • Wheat, sorghum imports cost N428b

    Nigerians spent  over N428 billion on20 the importation of wheat and sorghum in 2015, Central Bank of Nigeria  (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefeile has said.

    He spoke in Kano during the inauguration of the Northern Nigeria Flour Mill Plc’s Sorghum Milling Plant.

    The facility which is  expected to serve as a local source for raw materials, is  estimated to have cost N2 billion.

    Emefiele, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Cooperate Service Directorate, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, said the huge spent bills on the importation of these products, informed the decision of the apex bank to boost and sustain the local production of agric products, such as rice, wheat, cassava, fish and poultry, among others.

    He said 513 projects across the country have been financed by Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS), adding that a total of 604 projects have equally been financed under  the Real Sector Refinancing Project (RSFP).

    He said these interventions are the outcome of the collaboration between the apex bank and the Presidential Task Force on Food Security, aimed at boasting agricultural production, employment and wealth creation.

    Emefiele said the CBN will continue to support any venture that will save the nation’s foreign exchange, an area where the firm has demonstrated strong commitment to pursue.

    In her remarks, Minister of State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aihsa Abubakar, said the commissioning of the milling plant was unique in the sense that it would serve as a real boost in sourcing raw materials locally and will have positive impacts on local farmers/out growers.

    She said the commissioning of the plant directly aligned with the vision of the administration’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP),  designed to promote and sustain an inclusive growth in the implementation of Nigeria’s Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) .

    She said the plan also focused on areas in which Nigeria has comparative advantage that would guarantee competiveness in the global market and increase manufacturing contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) in the next five years.

    The minister said the plan, which was presently being implemented, would strategically unlock bottlenecks militating against the growth and development of the industrial sector, adding that government was also reducing the encumbrances that were affecting industrial development.

  • Refined petroleum products imports to end 2019, says Baru

    Refined petroleum products imports to end 2019, says Baru

    • Targets 3mbpd production 

    The 2019 deadline set by the Federal Government to end all forms of petroleun products imports shall be enforced, the Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru, has said.
    Baru, who stated this at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, United States. told reporters that currently the three refineries are producing petroleum products, adding that the importation exit target is achievable.
    The NNPC chief who was represented by the Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer, Gas & Power, Saidu Mohammed, stressed that there is no going back on the 2019 target set by the Federal Government to stop all forms of importation of refined petroleum products.
    He said: “We load out at least five to six million litres of premium motor spirit (petrol) daily and about that same quantity of automotive gas oil (diesel) daily from the three refineries. That is part of what is making the PMS market in Nigeria stable today. We believe that the set target of exiting PMS importation in 2019, is achievable.”
    He maintained that because rehabilitation of the refineries has been hampered by lack of regular Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) over the years, it would take more years to get the refineries fully back to their installed capacities.
    “Don’t forget also that for us to exit PMS importation in 2019, we have to also bring in new refineries that will co-locate with existing ones together with the new ones that will be built. Then, we see ourselves as a net exporter of products. On this, I can tell you that we are on course,” he added.
    Baru said following NNPC’s foray into the energy sector through electricity generation and other renewables, Nigeria’s perennial power sector woes would be over soon.
    Essentially NNPC has been there. Many people don’t know that the NNPC has been part of the power sector. We supply steadily about 1,000 megawatts (Mw) from Afam and Okpai, two of Nigeria’s most reliable power plants serving as one of the cheapest sources of power today in the country, he said.
    The NNPC chief said the Corporation has engaged its Joint Venture (JV) partners, including Chevron and Total to build similar power plants at Obite and Agura, adding that the Corporation was also looking at bringing in new investors.
    “We have advertised and are currently evaluating potential partners in this regard. The Corporation was fulfilling part of its commercial obligations to Nigeria’s energy sector through power supply from Afam and Okpai, as well as excess power from its refineries. He said that its role in the power sector will be enhanced with the completion of the power plants that it has started and most especially, the three mega power plants in Abuja-Kaduna-Kano that have combined 3000Mw capacity.
    Baru said “NNPC is also attending the OTC in order to attract potential investors and most significantly, to showcase its efforts of transforming into a full-fledged energy company.
    “We want to showcase to people who have the capacity, competence and technology to invest in Nigeria and help us increase our reserves and enhance the capacity of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), NNPC’s exploration and production arm. We want to raise NPDC’s production capacity by about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) to about three million barrels per day.

  • Nigeria, others to enjoy China’s zero tariff for imports 

    Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, and Ethiopia, among others, are to enjoy zero tariff set by the Chinese Government for imported products from the African continent, China’s Deputy Director-General, Department of Africa Affairs, in the Ministry of Finance, Ambassador Dai Bing, has said.

    He added that Nigeria and other beneficiary African countries would enjoy several poverty alleviation programmes under the Chinese intensive development programme for the African continent.

    Dai stated that under the programme, China started with four provinces: Shantou; Chenzhen; Xiamen and Zhuhai. He said if the succeeds, it can expand to other areas, but if it doesn’t, the negative effect can be curtailed. “We have chosen some African countries for industrial cooperation namely Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia and others,” he said.

    The Chinese envoy added that China already has a 10-point action plan for and with Africa. They are industrialisation, agriculture modernisation, infrastructure, financial services, and development.

    Other include trade and investment facilities (which will centre mostly on promotion of African trade in China); poverty alleviation (Dai made reference to China’s poverty alleviation programme, which he said has already taken 730 million people out of poverty, with only 50 poor people remaining.

    According to him, China also hopes to get rid of poverty in Africa in five years and hopes to share its experience in poverty alleviation with Nigeria. He said in the area of public health, China has good medication for malaria eradication, which Nigeria can benefit from.

    With regards to the Forum of China and Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Dai said that the 10 action plan was closely linked with Africa’s 2063 development agenda, which the country has already keyed into. He said this was agreed at a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2015.

    “At the summit, our President announced the 10 point agenda plan between China and Africa. And this 10 point cooperation plan has closed relations with your agenda 2063. We have started deeply on the 2063 agenda. We know the priority and the directions of the African continent,” Dai stated.

    He noted that in China’s cooperation plan, the priority was industralisation and agriculture, which are also the African continent’s priority. “The Chinese Government also promised $60 billion as supporting fund for our cooperation.

    “This $60 billion funding support is not only the cash. So, in this $60 billion, only $5 billion is used for non -interest loans; or $8 billion for the next three years. They are based on an all -beneficial principle, to help African countries promote their living standards and capability-building,” he explained.

    Dai said the other $35 billion is a beneficial loan; $20 billion is for capital projects. The money will be invested in sustainable development of infrastructure and assistance in Africa to help improve their business environment.

    “We are here to learn two principles; the first principle is that any country that wishes to absorb any foreign investment must have sound funds and complete laws and regulations and fair environment for law enforcement, which would ensure that investors feel safe.

    “It must have beneficial/proficient policies to ensure investors feel pleased to make profit. It must have light efficient and practical one-stop government services to make investors feel comfortable…” he said.

  • Nigeria loses $3.8b to software imports

    Nigeria loses $3.8 billion yearly to the importation of software, Transparency Advocacy Initiative (TAI) and Allied Civil Society Groups (ACSG) lamented yesterday in Abuja.

    Executive Director, (TAI) Amb. Yomi David National Convener, (ACSG), Comrade Solomon Adodo, told reporters during a press conference that the efforts being made by National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to boost local content would help Nigeria to reverse capital flight and loss of foreign exchange (forex).

  • Firm builds education software to replace imports

    In all-inclusive school management software designed by an indigenous IT firm, ATB Techsoft Solutions, promises to save Nigeria billions that it would have cost to import such application from abroad.

    The school management platform, called Eduware, takes care of a wide-range of administrative and academic tasks that schools carries out on daily basis.

    The software has solutions to manage admissions, student records, online course registration, course time table, online tests and examinations, automated result processing and display, e-learning, finance, student affairs, human resources, and online library for schools at various levels – primary, secondary and tertiary.

    Unveiling Eduware along with three other products (FINULTIMATE, ULTISURE and ULTIFLUX) at a press conference last Thursday, CEO of ATB Techsoft Solutions, Mr Abiodun Atobatele, said by developing the software applications, the firm has helped to find local solution to the high cost of purchasing them abroad, thereby boosting the country’s drive for local content.

    “What we have done is to offer software solutions of higher standard and functionality to the market as against what most organisations are purchasing offshore and at a much lower cost. This means Nigerian organisations do not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to procure Software abroad.

    “According to the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion’s (NOTAP) official estimate, organizations in Nigeria spend over $1billion annually to procure software. Our unique solutions are coming at a time to ease Nigerians’ business demand for forex. The only way we can create thousands of technology jobs in Nigeria is when the government, through enforcement of existing laws and regulations on local content, makes it compulsory for companies to buy Software developed in Nigeria by Nigerians,” he said.

    Atobatele said it took seven years of painstaking work to develop Eduware (and others).  He also assured schools of the software’s ability to accommodate/harmonise data from various sources, as well as store, and secure them – thanks to its partnership with Microsoft, which provides its access to the Microsoft Azure Cloud services.

    ATB’s Chief Software Architect, Patrick Anaih, said Eduware could function for one and even a group of schools.

    “Eduware connects each department to the school and the school to the students and parents, where necessary, to provide them with information sharing, easy retrieval of information for prompt decision-taking and it is user-friendly. You can have a single deployment of Eduware institutions with a chain of schools from primary school to university level. However, the application is enterprise-based and it does not only work with academic processes but also with administrative operations which include finance and online library,” he said.

    Microsoft Director of Small, Mid-market Solutions and Partners Group, Oluwawemimo Adeniyi, who was at the launch, said its partnership with ATB allows the firm to use its cloud services to meet the unique needs of its differentiated products.

    “Our unique approach to the cloud spans three areas that, when combined, give customers choice and flexibility with the cloud: enterprise capabilities, hyper-scale cloud infrastructure, and comprehensive hybrid solutions. Across these three areas, we bring the benefits of cloud speed, scale and economics,” she said.

  • Vehicles trapped at borders as ban on imports takes off

    Vehicles trapped at borders as ban on imports takes off

    •NCS: vehicles, rice imports prohibited through land
    boarders

    THE Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has started the implementation of the policy banning importation of vehicles through the land borders with many vehicles trapped at the borders.
    The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Seme Chapter, Lagos State confirmed yesterday that many vehicles were trapped at the border posts.
    A statement yesterday by the Customs Deputy Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, quoted the Comptroller-General Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd), as reiterating the Federal Government ban on importation of rice and vehicles through the land borders.
    He urged officers and men of the service to ensure maximum collection of revenue and strict implementation of government’s fiscal policy.
    The Public Relations Officer of the NCS, Seme Command, Mr. Selechang Taupyen, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Badagry that the service had to comply with government’s fiscal policy.
    Taupyen said the command’s officials had been placed at strategic places to curb any form of smuggling of cars.
    The Federal Government had on December 5 placed a ban on importation of used and new vehicles through land borders with effect from January 1, 2017.
    “The Federal Government has directed that importation of cars through the land borders should be banned and we are the agency that would enforce it. So, we have started with that.
    “The border is close to the point of importation of cars and the command has placed its men and escorts at strategic places to ensure that there is no smuggling of cars through the border.
    “We also have a good working relationship and synergy with other security agencies, who assist us in enforcing this policy because we all work for the same government.
    “We advise the public to abide by the government policy and if they must purchase a car, then it should come through the seaport as any vehicle that tries to come through the land border would be seized and confiscated.
    “Violators of the law would face the full wrath of the law,’’ he said.
    Taupyen added that the policy was meant to encourage local production of vehicles.
    “The public must look at the long term benefit of this policy as this would help in encouraging local production of vehicles and it would boost the economy,” he said.
    The Chairman of ANLCA, Alhaji Bisiriyu Danu, said as at Friday, December 30, 2016, the Customs authorities asked the agents to stop payment of Customs duty on vehicles by 5p.m.
    Danu said the association was not aware of any circular counter to the ban.
    He said so many vehicles uncleared by Customs agents were as at yesterday morning trapped at the ports of neighbouring countries.
    The Customs agent said the association went into dialogue with some government representatives to grant a three-month grace period.
    Danu said the grace period would enable ships carrying vehicles to berth for clearance before implementation of the ban.
    The Customs agent said the ban would render many car dealers around Badagry and environs idle and this could be a dangerous trend.
    A major stakeholder in Seme, Chief Sam Maduike, pleaded with the Federal Government to lift the ban.
    “The policy is going to bring untold hardship to the masses as the average Nigerians cannot afford to buy a brand new car,” he said.
    The President of the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, Mr. Lucky Amiwero, told NAN that the Federal Government should inaugurate a committee to look critically into the implications of the ban on vehicle imports.
    He said government should also look at the risk of the ban to the lives of Customs officers because there would be increase in smuggling.
    Amiwero said a question that should also be asked is: “Are Nigerian Ports friendly to accept vehicles?”
    He urged government to address the high cost of doing business in Nigerian ports.
    The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) yesterday said it supported the ban.
    Its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Stanley Ezenga, told NAN that the association’s support was borne out of the economic benefits that the policy would bring to the nation.

    Customs re-deploys senior officers

    THE Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday re-deployed eight Assistant Comptrollers-General and 238 Deputy Comptrollers-General of Customs.
    In a statement made available to reporters in Abuja, its Deputy Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, noted that the action was designed to strengthen operations and reposition the service to meet the challenges of the new year.
    The statement said: “In a bid to strengthen operations and reposition the service to meet the challenges of the new year, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd), has approved the redeployment of eight Assistant Comptrollers-General and 238 Deputy Comptrollers of Customs.”
    With the redeployment, which takes immediate effect, the following Assistant Comptrollers-General: ACG Charles Edike has been moved from Zone A to Human Resource Development (HRD),     ACG Ahmed Mohammed deployed from HRD to Zone B, ACG Aminu Dangaladima moved from Zone B to Enforcement.
    Also, ACG Francis Dosumu was been deployed from Enforcement to Zone D, ACG Augustine Chidi moved from Zone D to Excise, Free Trade Zone and Industrial Incentives (Ex,FTZ, & I I),  ACG Monday Abueh moved from Ex ,FTZ, & I I to Zone A,  ACG Umar Sanusi from HQ to Zone C,  ACG Abdulkadir Azerema from Zone C to HQ.”
    The statement added that the redeployment of Deputy Comptrollers of Customs affected the Service Public Relations Officer, DC Wale Adeniyi, who is now posted to Apapa Customs Area Command, Lagos.

  • Africa to spend $110b on food imports by 2025, says IITA DG

    Africa to spend $110b on food imports by 2025, says IITA DG

    Africa will spend  $110 billion in  food imports by 2025 because of the neglect of agriculture, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Director-General Dr Nteranya Sanginga has said.

    Addressing members of the Board of Trustees of IITA and researchers during the Partnership for Development Week (P4D Week) in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, he said failure to invest in agriculture would compound unemployment among youths.

    Sanginga said though some African countries have realised that agriculture is important but were not investing enough in it.

    “Take for instance the commitment to invest at least 10 percent of national budgets in agriculture. Not many countries are meeting this goal,”  Sanginga said.

    He praised the African Development Bank (AfDB) for coming up with Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) to transform agriculture on the continent.

    TAAT  is the  initiative of  AfDB and the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) under the Feed Africa Initiative to drive agriculture development on the continent.

    Through  TAAT,  the bank aims to invest more than $800 million to the agricultural sector. The funds would be channelled into upscaling of proven innovations that will improve the fortunes of farmers and address the twin problem of food insecurity and unemployment.

    Sanginga also reiterated IITA’s commitment to supporting African smallholder farmers in the context of agribusiness such that agriculture transcends food for the fork to money in the pocket.

    According to him, IITA would continue to respond to the needs of Africa by developing innovations that will provide answers to Africa’s food insecurity. To this end, IITA will be demonstrating its scientific leadership not only in terms of qualitative research in the lab, but also impact in farmers’ fields.

    Sanginga, who began his second tenure earlier this year, said IITA’s priority for the future would focus on research, capacity development, partnerships, impact at scale, and most importantly delivery.

  • Forex scarcity forces Marketers to cut imports

    F10uel marketers are cutting   imports because of their inability to get foreign exchange (forex), which now sells for N480 per dollar in the parallel market, The Nation has learnt.

    The situation is worsened by other factors, such as increase in the landing cost of fuel, poor profit and margins.

    It was gathered that the scarcity of forex had increased landing cost  from N133.28 per litre to N135, which made marketers to reduce importats and rely on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for supply.

    It was further learnt that NIPCO and some oil marketing companies still import while many of the firms had either stopped or reduced their imports.

    An official of an oil marketing firm, who did not want to be named, said the issue was affecting members of the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN).

    The source said NNPC was importing a larger percentage of fuel, because it had enough forex.

    The source said: “Problems, such as scarcity of forex, dwindling profit as evidenced by the poor margins being recorded by marketers, among others, have stalled efforts of marketers to bring in fuel. This informed the decision of the marketers to buy from NNPC.

    “Marketers buy fuel at N135 per litre as against N133.28. By the time the transport cost of N3 per litre and the bridging cost of N6.20 per litre are factored in, they (marketers) are left with very little profit, which in most cases is between N1 per litre and N1.50 per litre.’’

    MOMAN Executive Secretary Mr. Obafemi Olawore said the margins on litres of fuel were not enough. “The margins gained on imported petroleum products by marketers have never been adequate. By now marketers should be talking about impressive margins.”

    Olawore said he was yet to find out whether marketers were importing fuel or not. “I’m not abreast of the developments in the sector because I have been on leave,” he said.

    However, IPMAN factional leader Chinedu Okoronkwo refuted the claim.

    He said marketers were getting enough forex to import fuel, adding that operators were not complaining.

  • Nigeria spends $11b on food imports, says Bol boss

    Nigeria spends $11b on food imports, says Bol boss

    Africa imports over $35.4 billion worth of food items yearly, with Nigeria accounting for $11 billion of the bill, the Acting Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Mr. Waheed Olagunju, has said.

    He said Bol was working to make farmers see farming as a business and not a subsistence activity. To this end, BoI has come out to teach farmers good agronomical practices and best practices in soil preparation, among other things.

    Olagunju, who spoke at a media parley in Lagos titled: “Sustaining Nigeria’s industrial sector growth through impactful partnership,’’said as a country with a huge population, Nigeria needs to feed her citizens and also export to other countries to grow her Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    He said: “Huge population can be advantageous if it is productive, otherwise it becomes a liability. As a country with 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs), with each LGA blessed with at least a natural resource, we have no reason not to feed our population or create employment”.

    While encouraging investments in farming and food processing, the BoI chief said investors can never go wrong. According to him, Nigeria ranked fourth with 35 per cent on Return on Investment (RoI) globally.

    He noted that while a lot of countries are in competition for investment resources, Nigeria has all the resources in abundance.

    He said RoI should not be taken for granted, adding “We should try and de-risk our environment, improve on climate and continue to take measures by increasing our ranking in doing business.’’

    While calling for collaborative efforts from multi-lateral agencies, Olagunju stated that industrialisation is a multi-faceted process and no single agency can drive the industrialisation of any country. He said it is the only way the nation’s economy can be transformed in the shortest possible time.

    Olagunju added that Nigeria’s population was growing, hence there was the need to take a quick decision to remedy the challenges that come with population growth. “All hands must be on deck to achieve our desired economic and developmental goals,” he said.

    On the areas of support to agriculture, he said the bank has supported cassava growers and those who have gone further to add value to cassava to produce ethanol, starch, glucose, syrup and starch.

    “We are partnering the Federal Government on the disbursement of N220 billion to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and State Governments to draw up to N2 billion to support farmers in their state at two per cent,” he said.

    In addition, the bank, Olagunju said, made available N140 billion intervention fund as micro-credit programme to over 1.6 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). He said the nation is at a point that it should begin to add value to products from the rudimentary level for local consumption and for exports to generate foreign exchange for the country.

    “If we start adding value to our primary products, we will not have enough people to work. We will stimulate primary products, sell for the local market and export as each of the 774 local governments has at least one local product to process.

    “Unfortunately we are the only oil producing country that is exporting crude oil while others add value before exporting thus earning more. Our advocacy is for a paradigm shift,” Olagunju stated.

  • Nigeria’s paper imports

    •It’s high time the Federal Government reversed the trend to save forex

    There can be no better testimonial of the Federal Government’s bungling of the privatisation of its three paper manufacturing companies than the recent report that Nigeria currently spends an annual N500 billion to import paper products. Several years after the privatisation of the companies, it is easily a story of grand betrayal in terms of the expectations of swift turnaround and the grand dream of backward integration said to have supplied rationale to the much hyped process of sale.

    With none of the three specialised paper mills anywhere near the dreams as conceived by their founding fathers, not only is the nation served the short end of the stick as far as the expectations of performance go, nearly everything that could go wrong appears to have gone terribly wrong.

    We start with the oldest of them all – the Nigerian Paper Mill, Jebba, which opened shop in 1969 with an initial production capacity of 12,000 tonnes of apex per annum. Aside its best years of 1985 when it rolled out 40,480 metric tonnes of paper, representing 62.3% of its installed capacity, and 1986 when it took this up to 42,960 tonnes – representing 66.17% capacity utilisation, its story has been one of steady decline until 1996 when it finally shut its gates after output plumbed to 2.5 percent.

    Sold to MINL Ltd, an Indian company in June 2006, if we expected the company to take it to a new level, it has confined it to the level of waste paper recycling – a far cry from its initial dream as an integrated paper manufacturing entity drawing strength from backward integration. If the company ever intends to explore the use of primary fibre derived locally in its backward integration drive; that remains to be seen.

    But then, the story of Iwopin Pulp and Paper Company Limited, Iwopin, Ogun State, established in 1976 is even more tragic.  The company, designed to produce 68,000 metric tonnes of various grades of finished fine writing, printing and cultural papers, was planned to produce fully bleached pulp. Up till the time it was shut down in 1998, the mill never produced up to five percent of its installed capacity. This was despite attaining 85% completion.

    First, it was sold to an indigenous company – Noxieme Technologies Ltd – in December 2006; only last year, there were reports that the company has found a new core investor – Beulah Technical Company Limited. Yet, till date, there has been no tangible activity at the sprawling complex.

    The Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company, Oku Iboku, is no different. The mill, with an installed capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes of newsprint per annum took off with a promise to save the nation billions of naira spent to import newsprint – the main raw material used in the newspaper industry. After turning out 28,927 metric tonnes in 1989 and 37,581 tonnes the following year, the company would suffer precipitous decline in the 90s due to scarcity of funds to refurbish the equipment and purchase raw materials. In the end, it was sold to Negris Limited. It has been in coma since.

    Presently, the newspaper industry relies almost exclusively on imported newsprint at great costs to the foreign exchange reserves.

    After investing so much in the entities, Nigeria obviously deserves more than the companies would seem in any position to offer. A good way to start is for the Federal Government to find out what went wrong. How come none of the companies has been able to affect the fortunes of the entities in any fundamental way? Were there no timelines, no performance clauses in the sales agreements? For how long will the country continue to depend on India and other Asian countries for its paper needs? There ought to be something that the Federal Government can do to redress the unacceptable situation. And the time to act is now.