Vernella Toppin Defends Name

Vernella Alleyne Toppin

Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development Vernella Alleyne-Toppin has shot back at the Opposition People’s National Movement,  saying that the name rise up, which is a component of The Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (TCCTP), has no political connotations.

The programme’s name was changed from STEP UP to RISE UP (Rights of Individuals to Social Economic Security-Univeral Prosperity) by the People’s Partnership when it came into office in 2010.

In defending the name-change in Parliament Monday, Alleyne-Toppin said:

“The STEP UP name that was instituted by the PNM came in the 2006, close to the 2007 elections, following on an advertisement that said “We are stepping up with Prime Minister Manning.”

Just last week, Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley claimed the programme was being used as a political tool but Alleyne-Toppin again denied this as well as reports that the Prime Minister, in her portfolio as Minister of the People and Social Development, was handpicking activists for the programme.

She said when the Government inherited the TCCTP, the Auditor General’s report pointed to gross mismanagement on the part of the PNM.

She said the report noted that critical components of the TCCTP were ignored, the self-sufficiency of beneficiaries was not realised and that the debit card monitoring and evaluation received insufficient priority.

Alleyne-Toppin said the report also recommended that the Ministry should revisit the approval process because 639 cases of duplication among processed applications were not detected since March 2008.

“This means two debit cards were produced for each of these persons—a clear indication of mismanagement of public funds, negligence and corruption by the previous administration,” she said.

She said Rowley, who made a series of allegations about the programme, was a senior member of the Cabinet at that time.

“He was there, he would have reviewed the Cabinet Note and would have been part of the approval procedure and subsequent monitoring reports,” Alleyne-Toppin said.

She noted that the Auditor General’s report revealed that the previous Government spent $228.5 milion on the 17, 023 people transferred from the Social Help and Rehabilitative Effort (SHARE) Programme to STEP UP in just two years.

She said this is a far cry from the $223 million the People’s Partnership is now spending on 50, 000 families annually.

Source:trinidadexpress

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. 

Confident Toppin takes on Coker

Vernella Allyne Toppin

Tobago-East Representative Vernella Alleyne Toppin is not yet ready to ride out into the political sunset. In fact, the prominent politician is indicating that she is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the Tobago Organisation of the People continues to be relevant to the people of Tobago. Toppin has mounted a challenge against the incumbent chairman of the party, Lionel Coker. The party holds its internal election on June 1. She is backed by a team of individuals, even though the former university lecturer would not define it as a slate. Toppin’s challenge to Coker comes at a time when some within the party are calling for a total revamp of the party’s executive following the crushing defeat by the party, which was once poised the dominate the political landscape in Tobago.

Asked about her basis for running for the arduous task of the main administrative officer in the party, Toppin said it was the necessary at this time. Speaking with Tobago News in an exclusive interview on her porch at her residence in Plantations, she explained that when the results were announced on January 21, she was shocked at the outcome and immediately went into investigative mode to determine from the electorate, the reasons why the party lost so significantly. 

The research, she said, showed that the loss by the party was linked to a number of reasons, pointing to the fact that their strategies had not covered all of the bases and therefore the party had not presented the best strategy. “There were weaknesses,” she insisted. Toppin said she had suggested after the election, that everyone on the Executive should vacate their position and leave it up to the members to elect a new executive to lead the party.

“I decided that I would throw my lot in by holding a position of influence where I can make a difference; my ideas, my strengths, my abilities can be further utilised by the party in order to support the party in a stronger way,” Toppin said. She maintained that it was the action groups of the party who selected and nomination the members of her team in the election.

Toppin told Tobago News, she found the Executive was not up to the task that we was before it. “I thought that all along, I thought that more than a year now,” she remarked. It was on this premise that she agreed to lead a team to ‘give the party a better chance moving forward’.

Toppin, who presently holds the position of Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development, expressed confidence that she can be a productive party chairman. “I think I have the ability to be party chairman and to be very productive and to be very decisive and insightful and able to carry the burden,” Toppin said.

Toppin’s relationship with political leader Ashworth Jack has always been questioned, with some speculating that this turbulent relationship would have been the basis of the prime minister’s decision to move her from the Ministry of Tobago Development. The Member of Parliament however, adamantly disagreed with this perspective. “I have never had a bad relationship with the leader of the TOP.

I have always supported him. I have never disrespected him or purported to prefer that he would not be the leader,” the minister reiterated. “Our leader chooses his alliances, so it’s not that we have an antagonistic relationship, we have a leader/subordinate relationship,” she continued. As for her association with Coker, Toppin described it as ‘a working relationship’.

“We have hard work ahead of us. We just have to bring all our strengths together to come up with winning strategies. There are areas in Tobago that we can concentrate on to make a huge impact. We are poised to dominate,” she stated.

She is optimistic that she is the better individual for the job, touting her experience in parliament, locally and internationally. “I can articulate the policies, programmes and practices of the TOP. I am a Member of Parliament. I have an international experience dealing with people and negotiating. I have national and regional experience, 18 years as a university lecturer and over 40 years as a teacher. I am a politician in the true sense of the word. I can match my counterparts in Trinidad, I know I can match them academically and other wise. This should increase my appeal to the membership,” she articulated.

Source:Tobagonews

Vernella Alleyne-Toppin Contribution to No Confidence Motion Shameful and Highly Irrelevant

BE CAREFUL: Tobago East MP Vernella Alleyne-Toppin makes her contribution
in the no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister at Tower D,
International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain,
on Tuesday night. —Photo: JERMAINE CRUICKSHANK

Tobago East MP Vernella Alleyne-Toppin on Tuesday night responded to Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley’s e-mail revelations with some “e-mail” disclosures of her own. But her story was of an entirely personal nature.

Speaking in the House of Representatives, Alleyne-Toppin said she wanted to tell a story about a teacher who worked in a village called Charlotteville, in Tobago. 

This teacher and a dean of discipline was in the habit of violating students, she said. She added that one day when a young girl was bringing the teacher’s lunch for him that her aunt had cooked, the teacher, a boarder (with her aunt), “kidnapped her...and kept her hostage for four hours and raped her”. 

Alleyne-Toppin said the rape resulted in a pregnancy. She said when the victim “started to show”, she was thrown out by her father and family. 

The minister said people went to the father to beg him to take back the victim, his daughter, and he relented. “But throughout the pregnancy he (the father) refused to talk to her and she suffered untold psychological damage,” Alleyne-Toppin claimed.

She said when the father and the family and the village realised what went on, they decided that they would kill the man, but he found out, got a pick-up and moved out with his belongings in the middle of the night.

Alleyne-Toppin said the victim was sent to Trinidad and hidden away. She produced a son and eventually was sent further afield.

She said, much, much later, the man acknowledged his son and gave land. But when the child asked him for help to study, the man advised him to work before he studied, just as he did when he was young. 

Several times, PNM MPs Amery Browne and Donna Cox rose on a point of relevance, but Alleyne-Toppin said it was relevant because she got the information in e-mails.

“This is to show how damaging an e-mail can be, a simple e-mail,” she said, adding: “And this is a proven story.”

“Would you have full confidence in the man in this story were he to become a Member of Parliament? How could you now have confidence in him or a person in Parliament who is striving to become the Prime Minister?” she asked.

Alleyne-Toppin said parliamentarians had to be careful how they knocked each other down and had to be more humane. 

She said things said in Parliament go worldwide via the Internet. She had started off her presentation by noting that when she went to a recent conference in Suriname, a representative from St Lucia knew the “whole credit card story” associated with her. 

She said she also knew that a lecturer at Cave Hill teaching a course on credit card fraud was using her situation in his lesson.

It was Rowley who revealed the issue of Alleyne-Toppin’s use of the credit card to withdraw cash locally, which was in breach of the rules governing this facility.

Source: Trinidadexpress

Vernella slams Chief Secretary's failures

Vernella Toppin

The TOP once again flexed its political message last week Saturday night with a mammoth public meeting in the heartland of Tobago East Pembroke. The TOP heavyweights Ashworth Jack, Vernella Alleyne-Toppin and Dr Delmon Baker all seemed to be lifted by the overflowing crowd and delivered speeches of high potency to their mass of supporters.

Tobago East representative and Minister in the Ministry of the People, Vernella Alleyne Toppin unleashed a concerted attack on her former teaching colleague, and Chief Secretary Orville London. She accused London of presiding over a failed education system in Tobago. Under the London regime she said, "due to the failed system in Tobago, youths are being channeled into URP and CEPEP jobs while the educational institutions on the island are left wanting in several areas." She pointed to the Roxborough Secondary School which he said, "was established in 1965 and has no form 6 and she noted, "in one year there 75 Fifth Form pupils who dropped out of school in Tobago east, while 45 Fourth Form pupils also left school during the same year."

Alleyne-Toppin indicated, "the plot is to keep the Tobago youths dependent on the PNM for jobs in order to dictate how they vote." She also slammed the London regime for their failure to complete the Scarborough Library after 12 years in office and the non-functioning of the Charlotteville Library. "The lack of library facilities are a serious blow to the academic development of the Tobagonian," she contended.

She also took serious issue with what she described as PNM instigated rumour about "Indians coming to buy out Tobagonians land."

She accused the PNM of resorting to their historical policy of racist bigotry and of preaching politics of division in a rainbow nation. "How could Indians buy up Tobagonians lands when 87 per cent of Tobagonians have no titles to their lands?" she asked.

Alleyne-Toppin said, "While the PNM is resorting to lies and rumours to salvage their dying campaign, Orville London and his cohorts in the THA are sitting on 34 estates while Tobagonians are scrunting for lands for agriculture and housing. London has failed to grow the Tobago economy and for that reason, they must be voted out of office," the eloquent minister urged.

Reproduced from TobagoNews

Vernella Calls for Race Talk to Stop

Vernella Toppin
MP for Tobago East

The issue of race continues to be a main talking point on the political platforms of the PNM and TOP, as the race to the polls moves forward. In an interview with Tobago News, Tobago East Representative Vernella Alleyne Toppin, the minister made a plea for the race talk to stop, noting that it sets a dangerous precedence.

"What are we talking about, ethnic cleansing? What are we talking about, you understand? So I am very sad about what he is saying. I think that alone should disqualify Mr. London from being a leader in Tobago," Alleyne- Topin said.

Alleyne- Toppin is confident of the TOP making a clean sweep in the polls, and she is predicting ten to two, or a total twelve seats in the TOP's favor. She is also predicting TOP Leader Ashworth Jack will be the next Chief Secretary.

"I think that the hand of God is on his life," Alleyne- Toppin said.

She does not believe her past Government credit card woes will be a stumbling block towards the TOP winning the January 21st polls. In fact she has no regrets the TOP continues to be one of the four parties of the People's Partnership Government. Pleasing the national public is a hard task, and what she tries most to please God, she insisted.

"Is the government corrupt in your opinion? The government is definitely not corrupt. The government deals with issues very clearly, very fairly, very openly and we have no record of corruption," she said.

She said while some supporters within the PNM will not put on a yellow jersey in fear of victimization, others would listen at home and on election day stain their fingers for the TOP. Tobagonians, she said are encouraged to make the best choice.

"Make a choice for better education, make a choice for better community development, and make a choice for better jobs," she said.

reproduced from the Tobago news