Dear Editor,

Please allow a few lines to voice this Ragged Islander's opinion. We, like our other Bahamian brothers and sisters, are a proud people who can trace our inheritance on Ragged Island back for the last few hundred years. The small settlement of Duncan Town, Ragged Island, has produced the most lawyers, doctors, boat captains (check the RBDF roster) nurses, businessmen, pilots, educators, musicians, fishermen and other nation builders per island capita, considering the fact that the population of Ragged Island has never been greater than 500.
Up to the 1950s, many boats sailed from Ragged Island to Haiti and Cuba, importing and supplying fruits, vegetables and meats to Bahamians from all walks of life via the market on Prince George Dock years ago.
I listened with much interest and disgust to the Adrian Francis show, "National Access" on 104.5 Radio while driving on Tuesday, September 12. The government of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is obligated to provide for each citizen equally. There is no policy of special treatment for one group of citizens to the detriment of another group. The last time I checked, Ragged Island was part of this great commonwealth. Using Francis' logic, will the people of Mason's Addition sit idly by without basic infrastructure, while the government provides infrastructure to the affluent areas on the eastern and western ends of New Providence. I think not, and rightly so. Also, using his logic, islands like Abaco, North Eleuthera and Exuma should demand and get more from the central government, because taxes collected for the consolidated fund exceed what is spent on each of these islands.
So, Adrian Francis, we as Bahamians should swim or sink together. We Ragged Islanders expect from the central government nothing more and nothing less than any other Bahamian from Abaco in the north to Inagua in the south: basic infrastructure, i.e. - electricity, potable water, roads, cable, telephones, a school, a clinic and mailboat service. The rest we will provide for ourselves through our sense of independence and positive work ethic.
Ragged Island will always be our home, and we will never allow depopulation of our beloved island paradise, Duncan town, Ragged Island.

- Mercianna Moxey

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