PRIME Minister Bruce Golding says his Government is not concerned about the “nightmares” and “sleepless nights” promised Sunday by president of the People’s National Party (PNP), Portia Simpson Miller.

Instead, the prime minister told yesterday’s swearing-in of his state ministers and parliamentary secretaries, at King’s House, that he was more concerned about the “nightmares” and “sleepless nights” he had already inherited from Simpson Miller’s administration, which was voted out of office on September 3.

He was responding to the warnings issued by Simpson Miller during her address to her party’s one-day annual conference at the National Arena.

“We have been told that we are going to be visited by a nightmare. We already are wrestling with that nightmare,” Prime Minister Golding said.

“We come to government inheriting a debt of almost a trillion dollars. That is an enormous nightmare,” he added. “When we left office in 1989, that debt was $38 billion. Today it is almost a thousand billion dollars. We have a nightmare.”

“We have a crime rate in which the murder total this year, if it continues on the same trajectory, is likely to be in excess of 1,300. When we left office the murder toll at that time, which was to our mind a crisis, was 413. We have a nightmare in crime,” Golding said.

“And therefore, be prepared for sleepless nights, because these are not problems that are of such a nature that they are going to be able to be solved working normal sedate eight-hour shifts,” Golding told the 11 ministers of state and two parliamentary secretaries who were sworn-in yesterday, completing his executive.

“You are going to have to work through the nights, so you are going to lose some sleep. But be not afraid of any other sleepless nights, or any other nightmare. Those we have the capacity to respond to,” the prime minister said.

At the same time, Golding said his Government was determined to deliver on its commitment to create an autonomous local government system that is accountable, efficient and committed to delivering service to the people at the local level.

In that respect, he announced the appointment of newly elected MP for Western St Mary, Bobby Montague, as a minister of state within the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), with responsibility for Local Government.

He also explained that Shahine Robinson, who had been the party’s spokesperson on local government for the past five years, would also be assigned to the OPM, with responsibility for the Constituency Development Fund, under which individual members of parliament will have access to some 2.5 per cent of the budget for local projects in their constituencies.

However, he warned that the Government would not allow the fund to be reduced to a slush fund or a pork barrel.

He also named Daryl Vaz, MP for West Portland, as a junior minister in the OPM, with responsibility for overseeing government projects to ensure that they are completed on time and within budget.

The other state ministers sworn in yesterday were:

. Andrew Gallimore, Ministry of Labour & Social Security;

. Joseph Hibbert, Ministry of Transport and Works;

. Everald Warmington, Ministry of Water and Housing;

. Michael Stern, Ministry of Industry and Commerce;

. J C Hutchinson, Ministry of Agriculture;

. Laurie Broderick, Minister of Energy, Mining and Telecommunications;

. Senator Arthur Williams, Ministry of National Security; and

. Senator Ronald Robinson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

Two parliamentary secretaries – Senator Andre Franklyn, Ministry of Health and Environment, and Senator Warren Newby, Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports – were also sworn in yesterday.