Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe is ac­cus­ing the me­dia of “cher­ry-pick­ing” state­ments she made on Wednes­day to “cre­ate sto­ries.”

Cud­joe came out swing­ing dur­ing the fea­ture speech at the open­ing of the Mar­aval Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day. She took is­sue with a re­port in the Ex­press, which quot­ed her as say­ing some cit­i­zens want some­thing for noth­ing and need to sac­ri­fice more.

Cud­joe said the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to make the nec­es­sary de­ci­sions and take the nec­es­sary ac­tion to en­sure the na­tion’s chil­dren have ac­cess to those same ben­e­fits she had as a child in To­ba­go.

“So at the end of the day, some of the de­ci­sions we make, as I told the peo­ple of Tacarigua yes­ter­day, are un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sions and some­times it does not con­tribute to our po­lit­i­cal stock or our po­lit­i­cal stand­ing, but we con­tin­ue to make that sac­ri­fice be­cause what we do is in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Cud­joe said.

She said the pop­u­la­tion needs to re­mem­ber the fu­ture gen­er­a­tion needs these pro­vi­sions and those come at a cost.

“There would al­ways be the need for that and we make no apolo­gies for that, we could spend all right now and have noth­ing for to­mor­row. Yes, we can eat all the food right now and have noth­ing to give the chil­dren but how wise would that be?” she asked.

She crit­i­cised jour­nal­ists who she said were “cher­ry-pick­ing” her state­ments.

“So the me­dia could pick out what they want out of the con­ver­sa­tion and cre­ate all the sto­ries they want. This is what I said yes­ter­day and I am say­ing it to you again, we can’t just think about our­selves, we al­so have to think about these chil­dren and make that in­vest­ment,” she said.

The Sport Min­is­ter said those fu­ture plans need to be sus­tain­able as well.

Re­fer­ring to a young girl who was greet­ing at­ten­dees, Cud­joe said, “She is top of my mind, she is top of this Gov­ern­ment’s mind. Many of us have ben­e­fit­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go, the gov­ern­ments and ad­min­is­tra­tions and all the pro­grammes and projects over the years, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been good to us and it’s the same thing I said yes­ter­day and I am say­ing it again, we have a du­ty to be good to these chil­dren who are com­ing up and to make that nec­es­sary in­vest­ment in them.”

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia as she leav­ing the event, Cud­joe again crit­i­cised jour­nal­ists, say­ing her full speech from Wednes­day was avail­able for any­one who want­ed to hear her true state­ments.

“What sense does it make in­ter­view­ing me if the me­dia is go­ing to write and spread what they want any­way? So my ad­vice to you, lis­ten to what I said tonight and what I said last night and re­port what I said, rather than tak­ing bits and pieces and mak­ing may­hem with it,” she said.

Ear­li­er, she said the $15 mil­lion com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Mar­aval has a state-of-the-art ICT room, a train­ing kitchen, a gym, a li­brary and an au­di­to­ri­um that can hold up to 300 peo­ple.

Cud­joe said it was a far cry from the last com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and she im­plored Mar­aval res­i­dents to take care of the fa­cil­i­ty and utilise it to its full po­ten­tial.

Diego Mar­tin North East MP and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­so de­liv­ered re­marks at the cer­e­mo­ny. He said the new fa­cil­i­ty was a fan­tas­tic im­prove­ment from the for­mer com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, which he said was lit­tle more than a shed when it was built in 1995.

“This cen­tre I ac­tu­al­ly built, be­lieve it or not Min­is­ter Cud­joe, when I was Min­is­ter of Works back in the 1991 to 1995 pe­ri­od, we built it us­ing URP labour, that’s how it was be­fore. It was a ba­sic shed, four walls and a shed roof,” Im­bert said.

He asked Cud­joe to rein­tro­duce com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes in com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres to ed­u­cate res­i­dents.

“I am ask­ing you Min­is­ter Cud­joe, we have to get back to these com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes, craft, up­hol­stery, cook­ing and all of the things I re­mem­ber this com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre had in it years ago, we have to get back to that,” he said.

Cud­joe drew some laugh­ter when she held up her hands, rub­bing her fin­gers to­geth­er to in­di­cate mon­ey.

Im­bert’s re­sponse drew loud cheers from the au­di­ence, as he said, “The mon­ey will come, ask and you shall re­ceive.”

Act­ing Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Alyson West said the new fa­cil­i­ty was part of the Gov­ern­ment’s dri­ve to es­tab­lish a net­work of ICT ac­cess cen­tres across the coun­try.

“Our in­tent is to es­tab­lish around one hun­dred of these cen­tres to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ties with ac­cess to the in­ter­net, on­line train­ing, and Gov­ern­ment ser­vices,” West said.