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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Sham­fa slams naysay­ers

Sandals critics are enemies of Tobago’s economy

by

2431 days ago
20181119
Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Shamfa Cudjoe during her address at the convention yesterday.

Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Shamfa Cudjoe during her address at the convention yesterday.

DAVE ELLIOTT

Camille Mceach­nie

Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe came out swing­ing at To­ba­go’s econ­o­my “naysay­ers” in her ad­dress at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Na­tion­al’s (PNM) Con­ven­tion at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex in To­ba­go yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to a packed au­di­ence of par­ty faith­ful, most of whom had jour­neyed from Trinidad for the po­lit­i­cal par­ty’s sec­ond con­ven­tion in To­ba­go in 48 years, the To­ba­go West MP warned that “there are per­sons who do not want to con­tribute to the ad­vance­ment of To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.”

“I am there­fore baf­fled by the naysay­ers who say they love To­ba­go but . . . don’t want any­thing good for To­ba­go.”

Speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly about the peo­ple who op­pose the San­dals Re­sorts project, Cud­joe said she was “in dis­gust” when she heard an MP de­scribe To­ba­go as be­ing “too small to man­age any­thing or even have a de­sire for a de­vel­op­ment of this mag­ni­tude.”

She said the par­lia­men­tar­i­an’s con­tri­bu­tion echoed how is­landers were treat­ed un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

“Four years of their lead­er­ship, the air­port at Crown Point—the Arthur NR Robin­son Air­port—was cor­doned off. We be­lieved that work was tak­ing place there. They came and demit­ted of­fice and not a ham­mer was lift­ed not a brick was laid,” she said.

Laud­ing the val­ue of San­dal’s to To­ba­go’s econ­o­my, she said it is a game -chang­er.

“The San­dals project will change the game for tourism in To­ba­go... This project will bring air­lift, mar­ket­ing, for­eign in­vest­ment and jobs to To­ba­go., an ac­tiv­i­ty that we so great­ly need,” she said.

Cud­joe said the dream of a brand name re­sort on the is­land be­gan more than ten years ago.

“ I re­mem­ber re­turn­ing home in 2008 and for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don . . . was in­ter­viewed . . . about the state of de­vel­op­ment of tourism in To­ba­go. Back then, he hoped that To­ba­go would at­tract a rep­utable brand like San­dals and here we are ten years lat­er at the cusp of mak­ing this dream re­al­i­ty.”

She said it took the PNM led by Dr Kei­th Row­ley to bring the dream to fruition.

Of oth­er projects planned for the na­tion, the Youth Min­is­ter said the PNM will re­view the schol­ar­ship fund, build at least five Ear­ly Child­hood learn­ing cen­tres and ini­ti­ate pro­grammes fo­cus­ing on lead­er­ship skills and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment for young peo­ple.

She al­so said Gov­ern­ment will ex­pand oth­er youth-fo­cused pro­grammes, in­clud­ing the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship (YTEPP), Met­al In­dus­tri­al Com­pa­nies( MIC) and Youth En­er­gized for Suc­cess (YES).


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