Lilian Ezejelue
The National Economic Council retreat, a 2-day retreat, began today in Abuja.
The retreat which is an avenue for policies to be looked into so as to stimulate the economy had in attendance the President, Vice President, state governors, ministers and CBN officials.
The President, Muhammadu Buhari, during his address listed four sectors of the economy that requires urgent attention. These sectors are; Agriculture, Power, Housing and Manufacturing.
He stated that 10,000 megawatts of electricity must be provided in the next three years left to the other end of his present administration, 3,000 megawatts of which must be achieved before the end of this year 2016.
He went further to state that the process of privatization of the power sector must be concluded in order to put a stop to power outages and for Nigerians to reap its benefits.
On the agricultural sector, the President highlighted the need for local food production and sufficiency, stating that more resources must be provided to achieve this.
He acknowledged the need for the provision of good roads to transport crops and production plants and called on states to increase their support to community farmers.