The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

WE March leader Ranard Henfield, in his first speech as a senator yesterday, said the support Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has expressed for some of his organisation's demands is proof that the new administration is delivering what activists wanted.

Mr Henfield said that many demands of the We March organisation are on the table under the new "people's government" and they already have "ticks next to them."

In May, Mr Henfield released a list of demands of the government. A failure to accomplish them within the first 100 days of the administration would prompt his organisation to take to the streets and march again, he had said. The demands included lowering the cost of living and jailing corrupt politicians.

While the new administration has expressed verbal support for many of the organisation's demands, in many instances it is unclear what progress towards achieving some of them has been made.

Nonetheless, Mr Henfield said yesterday: "In that famous letter delivered to the former Prime Minister (Perry Christie) by Clarence Albury just prior to Black Friday, we asked for audits and in one week of coming to office they were started by the people's government. We asked to unseal the Baha Mar deal - and although the former prime minister invited the former attorney general to do so, it wasn't done until the people's government came into office (then it happened). We asked for term limits for the prime minister and an MP recall system and we see the new prime minister's blessings and signature on it already. We asked for an independent director of public prosecutions and again, we see the prime minister's blessings and signature on it already. We asked for fiscal responsibility and we see the new ministers looking for ways to cut government spending. We asked for Crown land to be distributed to Bahamians and again, the new prime minister has given his blessings.

"I marched for local government in New Providence and on Thursday morning past, I had the pleasure of sitting with representatives of the Office of the Prime Minister, Inter-American Development Bank and Our Carmichael to begin the process which will most likely be implemented within 36 months," he said.

Mr Henfield said he sits in the upper chamber as a "consultative" senator, not a Free National Movement senator.

"Let the record reflect that I stood on my feet in this august chamber on June 26, 2017 and declared that I am not an FNM senator - rather, I am a consultative senator having been afforded this privilege by the prime minister after consultation with the leader of the opposition," he said. "My role is to champion many of the causes we marched for on Black Friday 2016 and Majority Rule Day 2017."

Nonetheless, Mr Henfield defended the new FNM administration at times in his speech.

"Let us not permit the public perception to go on any longer that this administration is fully responsible for this 2017-2018 budget," he said. "With elections on May 10, the public ought to know that the budget process had long begun under the former administration and that the incoming administration was left to shuffle things around in the days following to keep the country going.

"To this administration, the people have found their voice," he said.