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Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Cudjoe-Lewis reflects on tenure as Sport and Community Development Minister

by

Clayton Clarke
33 days ago
20250214
Minister of Sport and Community Development (MSCD) Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, eight from left, and fellow poses with awardees of the SHAPE at the launch of the programme at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain on Monday, February 10. They are Edward Tuberoso, from left, Tonia Roberts, Jennifer Frank (partly hidden), Catherine Forde, Lovie Santana (partly hidden, collecting on behalf of Annette Knott), David Roberts acting Permanent Secetary in the Ministry of Sport and Community Development, attendee, Minister of of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Kazim Hoesin, Atiba Antoine, Minister in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Adrian Leonce, Clayton Williams (awardee), Sharon O'Brien (awardee) and Director of Physical Education and Sport Gabre Jesu-McTair.

Minister of Sport and Community Development (MSCD) Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, eight from left, and fellow poses with awardees of the SHAPE at the launch of the programme at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain on Monday, February 10. They are Edward Tuberoso, from left, Tonia Roberts, Jennifer Frank (partly hidden), Catherine Forde, Lovie Santana (partly hidden, collecting on behalf of Annette Knott), David Roberts acting Permanent Secetary in the Ministry of Sport and Community Development, attendee, Minister of of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Kazim Hoesin, Atiba Antoine, Minister in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Adrian Leonce, Clayton Williams (awardee), Sharon O'Brien (awardee) and Director of Physical Education and Sport Gabre Jesu-McTair.

Clayton Clarke

Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD) Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is con­fi­dent that she has made a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence dur­ing her tenure in charge of the Min­istry.

Cud­joe-Lewis took the port­fo­lio in 2018 fol­low­ing a cab­i­net reshuf­fle of the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment. She pre­vi­ous­ly served as Min­is­ter of Tourism from 2015 af­ter she won the To­ba­go West seat in the Gen­er­al Elec­tions of that year.

"I as­sumed du­ties (as Min­is­ter of MSCD) in 2018 and I nev­er hide to tell you I am no ath­lete. I nev­er played on a na­tion­al team, nev­er even made a lit­tle com­mu­ni­ty team. But sev­en years lat­er and es­pe­cial­ly as we get ready to bring down the cur­tain on this term of this gov­ern­ment's tenure you look back (at) how your time was spent and what have you been able to con­tribute. I let plan­ning take up my time along­side the of­fi­cers of the Min­istry.

"The whole in­ten­tion, al­ways, is to cre­ate pro­grammes and projects that would touch hearts and change lives. (In ad­di­tion) the staff at the Min­istry can own them and when I walk away, they would stand the test of time and out­live me."

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of the Sport, Health, Ath­let­ic Per­for­mance and Em­pow­er­ment (SHAPE) pro­gramme at the VIP Lounge at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Mon­day (Feb­ru­ary 10), Cud­joe-Lewis added that she was pleased to be part of the strides made in her Min­istry.

"In our coun­try and gov­ern­ment when par­ties change and ad­min­is­tra­tion change, they al­ways can­cel out what the oth­er per­son did. But what we want­ed to do was to cre­ate pro­grammes that will stick. The of­fi­cers, they are pub­lic ser­vants. I am a politi­cian. I am just pass­ing through. I don't even have con­trol as to how long I pass through for, how long is my stay. That is all from the peo­ple."

The To­ba­go na­tive is con­fi­dent she has made an im­pact.

"One day I will leave you and go on to some­where else, whether it is an­oth­er Min­istry or whether it is back to my pri­vate life but at the end of the day what you have learnt, what you have de­vel­oped and the struc­ture you have added no mat­ter which min­is­ter comes af­ter you have a sys­tem, tem­plate you can call your own," said Cud­joe-Lewis.

Sev­en­teen per­sons, who con­tributed to the suc­cess of SHAPE were ho­n­oured, in­clud­ing Jen­nifer Frank, Sharon O'Brien, In­shan Ali, Clay­ton Williams, Cather­ine Forde, An­tho­ny Creed, Shar­ma Ma­haraj, Wayne Drys­dale, Renel Clement, To­nia Roberts, Ed­ward Tuberoso, At­i­ba An­toine, Ge­of­frey Ed­wards, Stacey Cateau, Kwanieze John, An­nette Knott and Kieon Alexan­der.


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