FORMER Cabinet Minister Dr Paul Robertson has been given a senior position at the Port Authority of Jamaica.

Dr Robertson confirmed in an interview with the Jamaica Observer that he was on board at the Port Authority of Jamaica as senior director, to help work on government-related projects which have not made much progress in recent years.

“My responsibilities include dealing with government relations, which involve all projects and programmes, many of which have stalled in recent years. I am looking to unplug some of those things,” Dr Robertson said.

A former university lecturer who later became deputy general secretary, general secretary and vice-president of the People’s National Party, Dr Robertson has fought off illness in recent years, including major surgery to make his grand return.

“I had not wished to go back to a 9-5 job, but I thought that I would be able to help the Port Authority with certain things,” Dr Robertson said of his new job that is governed by a three-year contract, which officially began just over five weeks ago on April 1.

Disclosing that he was in good health now, Dr Robertson said that he expects that his skill and knowledge will redound to the benefit of the organisation that is headed by veteran administrator, Noel Hylton, to whom he reports directly.

Seen as one of the bright sparks of some memorable election wins by the PNP, Dr Robertson between 1989 and 2002, Dr Robertson entered elective politics in 1993 when he beat Kingsley Sangster by a landslide in the St Catherine South East seat.

The former senator, after moving up the ranks to be the day-to-day man at the secretariat, stepped up a notch in 2003 when he rose to the position of vice-president of Jamaica’s oldest political party by securing the last slot ahead of veteran Roger Clarke, who wept after he finished fifth, behind Portia Simpson Miller, Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Karl Blythe and Dr Robertson in the then PJ Patterson-led organisation.

The PNP later named Clarke vice-president emeritus.

As a member of the Cabinet, Dr Robertson served as minister of industry and investment, minister of foreign affairs, and minister of development.

He left elective politics shortly before the 2007 general election, for which he was named campaign director, working alongside Maxine Henry Wilson, and was replaced by present Member of Parliament Colin Fagan in the St Catherine South East constituency. Fagan was the councillor for the Edgewater division in the St Catherine Parish Council prior to the general election.