ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date for To­ba­go West Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is ac­cus­ing the cur­rent To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) un­der Far­ley Au­gus­tine of squan­der­ing bil­lions and fail­ing to de­liv­er jobs and sup­port to To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Speak­ing at a PNM meet­ing in Ply­mouth on Mon­day night, she said the THA ad­min­is­tra­tion had con­trol of To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment funds but had failed to use them prop­er­ly.

“What did you do with that $10 bil­lion,” she asked.

“As you con­tin­ue to dis­trib­ute To­ba­go peo­ple's state land to your fam­i­ly and your friends, where is our mon­ey for all de­vel­op­ment?”

She claimed while thou­sands of young peo­ple still strug­gle to find jobs, those in charge wast­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty they were giv­en.

“You have a TPP can­di­date who is al­ready a part of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, who is al­ready re­spon­si­ble for serv­ing you, de­liv­er­ing to you, giv­ing you jobs,” she said.

“So if you didn’t give me mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment in 2022, 2023 and 2024, what are you go­ing to do dif­fer­ent­ly now?”

Cud­joe-Lewis said promis­es of busi­ness grants and home sup­port are hol­low be­cause the THA al­ready had the pow­er to pro­vide them — and didn’t.

“You said you’ll help peo­ple build their hous­es with URP and so on, but it’s on­ly you and your mem­bers and your blog­gers whose house is be­ing built by URP,” she told the crowd.

She al­so slammed what she called the “10 on, 10 off” job sys­tem.

“That could have been jobs for all young peo­ple, not 10 on, 10 off that you tell them, be­cause they thought the elec­tion was in Au­gust,” she said.

She al­so dared her po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents to tell vot­ers who they are back­ing to lead the coun­try.

“I can say clear­ly that Stu­art Richard Young is the PNM can­di­date for prime min­is­ter,” she said.

“And I want you to turn and ask those in blue doors, in green and black, who are you sup­port­ing for prime min­is­ter.”

Cud­joe-Lewis said the time has come to stand up against what she calls mis­man­age­ment and be­tray­al.

“So To­bag­o­ni­ans, I want you to stand up and be count­ed,” she said.

“Do not be afraid. Do not be ashamed to say that you are stand­ing with the PNM, still in de­fence of To­ba­go, still in de­fence of de­cen­cy and or­der in the con­duct of State af­fairs.”