The evidence given this week by former finance minister Dr Omar Davies to the commission of enquiry into the financial sector meltdown of the mid-1990s has been very revealing.

As reported in yesterday’s edition, Dr Davies testified on Wednesday that he gave the National Commercial Bank special treatment because of the “too big to close” syndrome.

On Tuesday, he stated that the finance ministry’s only error lay in its naivety in trusting the principals of the failed institutions, some of whose actions he described

as “criminal”.

They should be called to give account, Dr Davies says, for their actions.

As a matter of principle we’re minded to agree, even though what we have heard from Dr Davies so far gives us little reason to expect much by way of frank disclosure.

As we understand it, the rationale behind the “too big to close” syndrome, which was born in the 1980s when movers and shakers of the US economy decided to bail out large institutions that had gambled on the financial market and lost, is premised on the assumption that economies cannot sustain the failure of big business.

So when they run into problems, usually as a result of the inept actions of their principals, every lifeline is extended to save them, ostensibly in the name of the public interest.

If this theory – as well as Dr Davies’ suggestion that the finance ministry’s relationships with the financial institutions that ‘fooled him up’ were governed by the ties of friendship as opposed to contractual obligations – was gospel, then we might as well chalk the whole catastrophe up to misfortune and move on.

However, we can’t do that.

Because the “too big to close” syndrome, which is full of holes in terms of the integrity of its selectivity, is nowhere near gaining universal acceptance. In fact, there have been and still are calls from various academics for its trashing.

And this space is prepared to dismiss Dr Davies’ maybe-I-was-too-naive explanation as one of the biggest loads of crap to sully the public’s intelligence in a

long time.

We say one of, because the current administration’s seemingly inexplicable, but totally understandable handling of the United States’ extradition request for Mr Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke is equally unacceptable.

And when the stink is that potent, there’s simply no ignoring it.