MINISTER of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith has hailed retiring permanent secretary Ambassador Marcia Gilbert-Roberts for more than four decades of service to Jamaica.

“After serving Jamaica, and the foreign service in particular, for nearly 45 years, we are sad to say farewell to our permanent secretary. We commend her unwavering commitment to public service and contribution to national development as well as her humility, professionalism and promotion of excellence as head of the Jamaican Foreign Service,” Johnson Smith told a virtual press conference on Tuesday.

With Ambassador Gilbert-Roberts’s retirement, Ambassador Sheila Sealy Monteith, who recently completed a tour of duty as ambassador to Belgium, will assume duties as permanent secretary with effect from February 1.

“We look forward to welcoming her formally,” Minister Johnson Smith said.

Ambassador Gilbert-Roberts was appointed permanent secretary in 2016. Her more than four decades in the foreign service includes serving as deputy high commissioner to London from 1991 to 1996; director of the International Organisations Department in the ministry from 1996 to 1998; and undersecretary, Foreign Service Operations Division, from 1998 to 2002.

Between 2002 and 2007, she served as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, with non-resident accreditation to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Holy See, Israel and permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

From 2007 to 2011, she was ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium, the French Republic, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Principality of Monaco and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Portugal, the Kingdom of Spain, the European Union, and permanent delegate to UNESCO.

Before her appointment as permanent secretary, Ambassador Gilbert-Roberts was senior adviser to the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade.