Former Premier Sir David Gibbons has told a Caribbean news magazine that Bermuda’s Government is “simply not competent” and that the Island’s reinsurance industry is “very healthy”.In an interview published on Friday in Caribbean Journal, the former United Bermuda Party leader said of Government: “They don’t do any sort of a job at all of properly developing tourism.“For example, in my day, we promoted golf in New England in the winter, because there’s snow all the way through Boston and New England, and people would come here and play golf in the winter.“They’ve run up a huge national debt. In my day, we balanced budgets: Eleven in a row. We paid the national debt and owed nothing. Now, they owe the best part of a billion dollars. I’m afraid the present Labour government is simply not competent.”Sir David, who was Premier from 1977 to 1982 and whom the magazine describes as “one of the most influential Bermudians”, said Bermuda remained the world’s second biggest reinsurance centre after New York.“Three or four years ago it passed the city of London and Lloyd’s and the year before that it passed Switzerland, so the national reinsurance industry is very healthy.”Sir David was asked to comment on Bermuda’s economic interaction with the Caribbean in the context of its associate membership of Caricom.“We have very little interaction other than bringing rum from Barbados and Jamaica that’s about it,” he said. “There’s no other trade, as it were. All of our trade is with the US, Canada, Britain, China and Europe.”He said he didn’t think Bermuda would become independent “because the last time they had a referendum, 73 percent of Bermudians voted against independence”.“I have been involved with government for many years and absolutely oppose it, because you have enormous advantages. You have completely free coverage as far as defence is concerned, as far as the British Government.“Look what happened in the Falkland Islands; not that we expect an invasion from Cuba or any place. We have no international defence cost; we have no cost in representing Bermuda. We are represented by Britain in the UN and we don’t need consulates in various countries.”Useful website: www.caribjournal.com.