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For the failure of privatised paper mills in the country to live up to expectations, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) is again under the searchlight of the Senate that is seeking to know why the local market has crumbled to imported papers.
The bureau is currently standing trial at the national assembly for its role in the power sector where the electricity companies that it sold have performed below expectations and failing to provide the country with stable electricity.
For reasons bordering on non-performance and lack of adequate funds to run them to profitability, the Paper Mills were privatized by the BPE for better management and also to help in industrialization and educational development worldwide.
Nigeria’s three paper mills: Nigeria Paper Mill (NPM) Kwara State, Nigeria Newsprint Manufacturing Company (NNMC) Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria National Paper Manufacturing Company, Ogun State were established by the Federal Government in the 1960s and 1970s.
They are to produce corrugated cartons, sack craft paper, kraft paper, linear and chipboard as well as fluting media to meet the country’s needs in writing and printing papers.
However, hope for the sector to boost the economy has been dashed as the firms have all gone moribund since privatization, leaving the country with another huge income deficit.
The committee on Privatization will expect to hear from the BPE, reasons for the non-performance of the privatised Paper Mills, as the lawmakers look into the share purchase agreement signed between the privatisation agency and the paper mills.
“Many of them you will find have simply not complied with the agreements on the basis of which we surrendered our common patrimony”, said Ahmed Lawan, the senate president.
“So, our committee on privatization should be able to do that. Where these investors have failed to move the paper mill industry forward so that the government will know what to do”.
The lawmakers fear the companies that bought these mills have either abandoned them or not been able to revive them to full capacity, thereby making the country depend on imported papers.
The Senate was moved by recent statistics by the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC) that Nigeria lost over N800 billion annually to paper importation, while the Printers Association of Nigeria put the figure at $1trillion annually through the importation of over one million metric tons of paper at the cost of $1,000 per tones.
What makes it more confounding was the workforce of over 300,000 people and an investment worth over N100 billion prior to the privatization policy by the government and which, have now, all been overwhelmed by foreign papers
“It is extremely important that we save the very scarce foreign exchange that we spend on the importation, and in the process export our job opportunities to other countries,” Lawan said.
Senator Stephen Ekpenyong (PDP AKWA Ibom North West) observed the unhealthy state of the printing industry is adversely affecting the education sector, relying on statistics that over 100 million books are required annually in the country for the 20 million students in schools and by the National Book Policy, five books are the requirement set per pupil.
Seventy-five percent of these books, he lamented, are printed outside the country.
“This is because the printers make more money printing abroad because duty on the importation of published books is zero percent while the importation of paper, as raw materials into the country is up to 30 percent,” Ekpeyong said.
BADEJO ADEMUYIWA has 23 years experience as a Finance Writer, specialising in Insurance and Investigative Reporting.
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