Joseph Bakare/Vincent Nwadiogo
President Muhammadu Buhari has listed five sectors of the economy that should be focused if the national economy will thrive.
Speaking at the opening of the two-day National Economic Council (NEC) retreat in Abuja, the president said the challenges standing against development in agriculture, power, manufacturing, housing and the healthcare sectors must be tackled to take millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
He regretted that despite huge oil revenues, the country’s health sector remained undeveloped, and Nigerians spend $1 billion yearly to get medical treatment abroad.
Buhari lamented the state of the health sector and said urgent measures must be put in place to improve health facilities in the country.
“In attacking the challenges of this sector, we could start with more funding for health centres to improve service delivery. The World Bank and World Health Organisation (WHO) could be persuaded to increase their assistance,” he added.
The purpose of the retreat as outlined in the retreat concept notes is to generate immediate, medium and long-term viable policy solutions to the economic challenges facing the country at both the federal and state levels.
The president, who noted that inadequate power supply continues to undermine the country’s capacity to develop in all sectors, said his government would generate 10,000MW of electricity in the next three years. “In 2016 alone, we intend to add 2,000MW to the national grid,” he added.
Stressing that the incessant outages in the country were not a laughing matter, he said: “This sector has been privatised but has yet to show any improvement in the quality of service. Common public complaints, include, Constant power cuts destroying economic activity and affecting the quality of life, High electricity bills despite power cuts, Low supply of gas to power plants due to vandalism by terrorists.
Others are Obsolete power distribution equipment such as transformers, Power fluctuations, which damage manufacturing equipment and household appliances, Low voltage which cannot run industrial machinery.
Buhari said insufficient electricity was the problem of past governments but will be properly looked into by his government, also promising to conclude the privatisation process started by his predecessor.