President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told her Cabinet Ministers on Saturday that delivery of her three top priorities of roads, energy, and ports was their collective responsibility for the next 12 months.

Making remarks at the end of the one-day Cabinet Retreat held at the S. K. Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville, the President emphasized that working together as a team, she expects results to be delivered on the three priorities today, tomorrow and every day throughout the rest of the first term of her administration.

The Director-General of the Cabinet, Dr. Momo Rogers, said that although the President placed emphasis on the three priorities, she at the same time made it clear to the Cabinet that everything else that the Government of Liberia is delivering remains critically important, especially developments in the areas of agriculture, health and education.

Explaining why she chose the three priorities, the President said: "The focus on roads, energy and ports has been established above these other priorities because infrastructure is critical to enabling progress in other areas."

It should be noted that infrastructural development is the most important part of economic revitalization, one of the four pillars of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The Cabinet Director General said the focus on roads is primarily about surfacing main roads in Monrovia and its environs and developing other roads across the country which will improve connections between people and their communities and support business growth in rural as well as urban areas. For example, he noted that developing feeder roads will enable farmers to get their products to markets more quickly and easily.

On energy, he said that the focus is largely about increasing the generation, distribution and connection of electricity, bringing light into thousands of additional homes, especially to enable children to study at home in the evenings and home-based businesses to increase their working hours and become more profitable.

In addition to lighting up Monrovia, equal emphasis is being placed on rural Liberia, from providing the use of solar power to cross border electricity out of Cote d'Ivoire, where that country has agreed to supply electricity to Nimba, Grand Gedeh, and Maryland counties, initially targeting the county capitals and 20 other specific towns and villages in those counties.

On the ports, he noted that the focus is on improving existing facilities both at our seaports and airports in order to bring them to international standards and better facilitate connections with the rest of the world, thereby encouraging more business and trade investments that will create jobs for the Liberian people.

The Cabinet Director-General said in order to monitor progress in these priority areas, the President directed Mr. Patrick Sendolo, head of the Program Development Unit at the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs, to liaise with relevant ministries and brief her monthly on implementation and challenges.