Abia Govt To Re-Engineer Economy Through Agric

The Abia State Govern
ment says it will re-engineer the state’s economy through exploring the potential in agriculture.
The Secretary to the Abia State Government (SSG), Dr Eme Okoro, said this while inspecting an abandoned Oil Palm Estate on the Ozuitem and Ugwueke-Alayi-Akaeze road in Bende Local Government Council.
He said the government was making efforts at transforming the state’s economy through harnessing its ability to increase the Internally Generated Revenue.
“The current administration is pursuing a well-articulated programme to ensure that the people of Abia enjoy all aspects of good governance,” he said.
Okoro observed that Abia North had a huge oil palm belt, vast lowland swamp for rice farming, lakes for fish farming and an untapped arable land for cultivation of all kinds of crops.
Okoro said that government was also constructing roads to ease movements to areas of production in order to enhance productivity at the grassroots.
In his remark a former chairman, Bende Local Government Area, Chief Emma Rocks, attested to the fact that the people of the area were predominantly farmers.
“I believe that by constructing access roads, agricultural practice in Bende will receive a boost, which in turn will make positive impact on Abia’s economy,” he said.
The state Commissioner for Works, Chief Eziuche Ubani said: “we want to promote trade and commerce by making the evacuation of farm produce from Bende easy.
“We want to build value chain by re-building our economy around the things we produce; but we cannot take advantage of the prospects in Abia North unless there is a good road network”.
Ubani added that constructing access roads to the abandoned Ozuitem Oil Palm Estate, would yield many dividends to the people and government of Abia.