For a Ministry staffed not by gene- ralises but by a cadre of communica- tions specialists, this extent of foreign purchase is an admission of serious failure, of ill-conceived R and D effort, and of an inability to develop and build on previously imported techno logy. But it is also symptomatic of the general lack of accountability that allows claims to be made of advance in indigenous technology which prove to be singularly ephemeral when the moment comes for translating them into the realities of production.