Former information minister Burchell Whiteman has denied that he has been asked to replace Ambassador Gail Mathurin as Jamaica’s High Commissioner to Britain when she demits office to take up an appointment as Jamaica’s Permanent Representative to the Office of the United Nations and Specialised Agencies in Geneva.

Mathurin, who was named Jamaica’s top diplomat to Britain in April 2005 during the administration of former prime minister P J Patterson, replaced Maxine Roberts, who completed her two-year tour in December 2004.

In Geneva, Mathurin will take the place of Ambassador Ransford Smith, who will be moving to London to take up the post of deputy secretary-general at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

It is widely expected that a former government minister will be replacing Mathurin, but on Friday Whiteman denied rumours that he had been approached and was considering taking up the post.

“I have received no such instructions,” Whiteman told the Observer. “In fact, I haven’t even been approached, so no, nothing like that is in the works.”

Whiteman confirmed that he was going to England next month, but said it was a long-planned trip for personal reasons.

“I’m acting on a decision that I took in March that I would be going up. So yes, I will be going to England in a couple of weeks, but that will be to visit friends and family and to conduct personal business,” he said.

Whiteman, one of the few politicians to command respect and admiration from both sides of the House, has spent virtually all his adult life in the government service – 14 of those as a Cabinet minister, 17 as a parliamentarian and a number of years as an educator in Brown’s Town, St Ann.

He began his service as a teacher at York Castle High School, and among his achievements is the founding of the Brown’s Town Community College in the North West St Ann constituency he later represented in Gordon House.

When he was elected member of parliament in 1989, he was named state minister for education, and was later appointed minister of education. After the 2002 general elections, Whiteman was named government senator, information minister and leader of government business in the Senate, and at the same time took on the position of general-secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP).

On March 30, he resigned all his government posts, the same day that Patterson stepped down as head of the government. Several weeks later Whiteman also resigned as general-secretary of the PNP, bringing to an end a 40-year career in the public service.

In an interview published in the Sunday Observer of June 25, Whiteman intimated that he had been looking forward to retirement, and unlike his contemporary, Patterson, who plans to publish his memoirs and to even continue working, Whiteman had no such plans.

“The novelty of retirement has not yet worn off,” he said. “I read the papers, surf the net, watch the news on TV, and every now and then I meet with friends and former associates to discuss matters of the moment.”

– campbello@jamaicaobserver.com