Vernella Toppin Calls Shamfa Cudjoe a “Bethel Badjohn”

Bottomless pit’:
Government Senator Vernella Alleyne-Toppin
gesticulates during her presentation at
 yesterday’s sitting of the Upper House.
photo courtesy: Express News paper

Giving money to the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) is like pouring money into a bottomless pit, Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development Vernella Alleyne-Toppin declared yesterday.

She said it was time to rein in the PNM-led THA, which was a “runaway horse”. 

“And I am asking if we in Tobago (are) suckers for punishment, why are we continuing to vote for them?” she said.

It was a case of one Tobago firebrand against another in the Senate yesterday, as Alleyne-Toppin, a former teacher, responded to the contribution of her former pupil, Shamfa Cudjoe, whom she dubbed the “Bethel badjohn”. But Alleyne-Toppin, who said she was from “Government house” and didn’t have the same (badjohn) training as Cudjoe, nevertheless pulled no punches as she put a verbal thrashing on Cudjoe and the PNM.

She said Cudjoe was “rude” and “disrespectful in a contribution, which she described as “vile, vapid, vituperative, vitriolic, venomous and vacuous. 

Shamfa Cudjoe Fires at PP government for Punishing Tobago

‘Tobago being punished’: Opposition Senator Shamfa Cudjoe
during her contribution to yesterday’s debate in the Upper House of
 Parliament at the International Waterfront Centre,
Port of Spain. —Photos: ANISTO ALVES

By the time People’s National Movement (PNM) Senator Shamfa Cudjoe was finished with her budget contribution, she was dubbed the “Bethel badjohn” by Minister of State in the Ministry of the People and Social De­velopment Vernella Alleyne-Toppin.

In a fiery budget contribution, Cudjoe accused the People’s Partnership Government of punishing Tobago for voting 12-0 against itself in the last THA election. 

“This is a Tobago in time-out budget,” she declared. 

She said this Government, which promised in the last Tobago House of Assembly campaign to give Tobago eight per cent of the national budget, had only provided the barest minimum of funding, as required by the Dispute Resolution Agreement—4.03 per cent of the national budget. 

(The DRC ruling recommended Tobago receives between 4.03 and 6.9 per cent of the national budget.)

Cudjoe said Tobago was not prepared to “prostitute” itself for eight per cent, and that is why it had voted 12-0 against the PP.