He wanted a ‘quick work’; JAGS fought for Better Pay for Public workers

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, May 29, 2023 – As the Turks and Caicos celebrates the Right Most Excellent JAGS McCartney, the country’s only national hero, his extraordinary leadership and commitment to better care for the residents of his country is a constant talking point.

In an interview regarding potential monetary aid from Britain, McCartney demonstrated that care, arguing for underpaid civil servants.

“We must get more than we have now because our civil servants, especially our nurses, teachers and policemen are much underpaid. We must work as quickly as we can to try to correct that situation.”

In a broadcast shared with Magnetic Media by the family of Rt. Most Excellent JAGS McCartney in support of the commemoration of his birthday; we capture the passion, essence and convictions of the country’s first chief minister who over 40 years ago reported that one of the reasons the political directorate at the time was meeting with so many different international partners, in a hope that somebody would “put their money where their mouth is.”

He said too, the country was well within its rights to ask for aid with a low interest rate from the UK.

“If you follow history carefully we were remitting to Britain three times the amount of money that it took to run this country which means that we were enriching Britain, so why can’t we have back some of the money— that same money.”

McCartney, the founder of the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) died in 1980, tragically in a plane crash off New Jersey, while still in his role as Chief Minister at only 35 years old.