NASSAU, Bahamas, May 5, 2020 — The Cabinet Office has announced that Prime Minister the Most Hon. Dr. Hubert Minnis “will temporarily assume responsibility for the portfolio of Health, effective immediately.”
The announcement, made in statement released Tuesday night, follows the resignation of Dr. Duane Sands as Minister of Health, which took effect on Tuesday, May 5. 2020.
Dr. Sands submitted his surprise resignation on Monday in the aftermath of a whirlwind of controversy surrounding a decision in which he was involved to allow six American permanent residents of The Bahamas to disembark from a plane that landed at Lynden Pindling International Airport on Wednesday, April 29, with a donation of 2,500 doubled-swabbed diagnostic test kits for COVID-19, although the borders of the country were shutdown to all incoming people as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Prime Minister accepted Dr. Sands’ resignation in a statement released shortly before 10 o’clock Monday night.
Since he became Prime Minister after the Free National Movement (FNM) won the May 10, 2017 general elections, Prime Minister Minnis, who is a medical doctor, has not had direct responsibility for a particular portfolio, but he previously served as Minister of Health in the previous FNM government headed by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
