BETWEEN the scandal involving allegations of corrupt officials involved in the smuggling of cocaine through The Bahamas and the chaos enveloping Junkanoo at the moment, the government can hardly seem to catch a breath.

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis seemed frustrated yesterday when he talked about the former – saying that US officials have failed to identify the high-ranking politician discussed in the US indictment that has so far seen two Bahamian officers arrested, one from the police, one from the defence force.

Mr Davis said yesterday: “I told them to disclose to me the named politician. They haven’t done it yet. My colleagues don’t know.”

Previously, the now former Commissioner Clayton Fernander had also professed a lack of knowledge of anything to do with the indictment.

What this shows more than anything is that despite an investigation of a years-long conspiracy, The Bahamas has been kept out of the loop.

We are not trusted with the information.

When you consider some of the allegations – such as wrong information being provided to US drug enforcers and some drug suspects being described as “off limits” – perhaps that is not so surprising.

What it means in practice is that Parliamentarians are possibly sitting right next to a politician who was willing to betray the country for $2m in order to protect drug smugglers.

Mr Davis yesterday lamented: “We do have bad apples amongst ourselves, and we got to root them out where we find them. On several occasions, I asked them (US officials) to help me identify them, and they haven’t. They’re prepared not to let me know who they are, but they’re prepared to indict them.”

What is remarkable in the face of this is that Mr Davis has not announced any kind of thorough investigation to determine the facts for ourselves. This is exactly why calls for a Commission of Inquiry are appropriate – so that we can

investigate what is going on right here and hold whoever is corrupt to account.

As he tried to defend the country’s reputation yesterday, Mr Davis at one point played a CBS news recording about allegations against US law enforcement leaders accused of illegally selling firearms. He said he did not play it to excuse the allegations against The Bahamas but said the US is facing similar challenges.

No one has said the US is without sin – far from it – but it is curious that Mr Davis would attempt to deflect this way having clearly come prepared with the audio ready to play.

Amid all this, all manner of allegations continue to swirl on social media. One such report yesterday even prompted Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell to deny a claim about Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe, while himself alleging that the story was a lie “by the FNM”. He did not provide any proof that this story had come from the FNM – and it is beneath the gravity of the allegations to try to make this into a political fight.

If the allegations in the indictment are true, then those involved did not just betray those in gold shirts, but those in red shirts, green shirts and every Bahamian in the land.

When taking money to protect drug smugglers or bringing guns into the country, we doubt there was any consideration of FNM or PLP among the alleged criminals.

Is the country being smeared unfairly? Well, the only allegations are those in the indictment – that a series of individuals along with corrupt officials smuggled drugs through The Bahamas and into the US.

The only way that is unfair is if that is untrue. Otherwise, these are Bahamians carrying out these actions.

We need to truly address these allegations properly and not turn this into a political or diplomatic shouting match.

Did these actions take place? If so, we need to deal with them. It is as simple as that.