By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday reiterated his charge that newly sworn in Cabinet ministers will not shirk their parliamentary duties as they take on their government portfolios.

Dr Minnis noted that ministers were expected to report to their various constituencies on a quarterly basis and keep tabs on the concerns of constituents as he addressed the press ahead of the first sitting of Cabinet.

When the press arrived at 8.40am, Dr Minnis was already inside and his ministers began arriving at the Office of the Prime Minister around 9am.

Dr Minnis likened last week’s landslide victory to the Free National Movement’s first government win in 1992, underscoring that at both times the country had been “rocked with corruption”.

“We won on the message ‘it’s the people’s time’ and we will adhere to that,” Dr Minnis said. “We will continue to listen to the people and we will be taking directives and working for the people.

“In 1992 when we came in we had a country to rebuild. The country was rocked with corruption. The FNM was built with transparency and accountability and we had to free this country in 1992.

“We opened the airwaves and hence you (the media) are here. In 2017 we are doing the same thing, this country is rocked with corruption from the government that we have just removed, and now again you will see transparency, accountability and the people will again have the voice just like they did in 1992.”

Fifteen cabinet ministers took the oath of office at Government House on Monday, a group that stunningly included just one woman.

Of the 12 substantive ministers and three ministers of state, Seabreeze MP Lanisha Rolle was appointed minister of social services and urban development.

The FNM won 35 of 39 seats, with four of its women candidates taking seats in Parliament for Seabreeze, West Grand Bahama and Bimini, Pakeisha Parker-Edgecombe; Fox Hill, Shonel Ferguson; and MICAL, Miriam Emmanuel.

During the FNM’s 1992 term, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham appointed three women to his Cabinet: Janet Bostwick, attorney general and minister of foreign affairs; Dame Ivy Dumont, minister of education and youth; and Theresa Moxey-Ingraham, minister of commerce, agriculture, and industry.

In 2002, then Prime Minister Perry Christie appointed Cynthia “Mother” Pratt as deputy prime minister and minister of national security; Melanie Griffin, minister of social services and community development; Glenys Hanna Martin, minister of transport and aviation; and Allyson Maynard-Gibson, attorney general and minister of legal affairs.

With the exception of Mrs Pratt, those women returned to the same posts in 2012.

The first woman Cabinet member Dr Doris Johnson took her oath following the Progressive Liberal Party’s 1968 snap election victory over the United Bahamian Party.

She had served as the first woman senator under then Premier Sir Lynden Pindling’s previous government.

The new Cabinet has 19 ministers, inclusive of Dr Minnis.