The question is: Will Kenyans continue funding the mistakes of a few people in power with their hard-earned tax money?

The nine-year-old domestic debt is the cause of high bank interest rates which are discouraging investment and growth.

The seemingly accepted but economically unsound thinking in Government circles and the lending community is that domestic debt, even that large chunk arising out of illegal printing of money, should be retired using proceeds from privatisation.

I beg to differ. If we sell Telkom, we should not use all the money to retire the legal portion of the domestic debt (which is only about Sh60 billion). The money should also go to security, health-care and education because, this way, it will directly alleviate poverty.

I am assuming that the clique of robbers in high circles will not hijack Telkom's privatisation after such a well conducted auction in which the Mount Kenya Consortium won by offering the highest bid of $306 million.

The illegal part of the domestic debt attributable to the printing of paper money should be criminalised. Those who gave or carried out the orders and those who actually printed the money should now be made answerable to Kenyans.

And Kenya's financial institutions that "prudently" supported the Government to mop up excess money must now understand that they are holding a baby about to die in their arms.

The now seemingly imprudent action by banks should be viewed in the correct perspective. They invested in debt instruments that arose out of an unconstitutional act. Should they blame anybody if a new government disowns the illegal chunk of the domestic debt paper?

The Parliamentary Finance Committee should address itself to this catastrophe without delay. International borders should not be a hindrance to the pursuit of the companies that printed the money.

It is well understood that about 60 per cent of the domestic debt is held by about five major banks. The fear in some quarters is that this may trigger the biggest banking crisis ever in this part of Africa.

Kenyans should not forget, too, that both the National Bank of Kenya and the Kenya Commercial Banks hold about half of the unsecured loans featuring in the Sh130 billion non-performing loans. 

This colossal amount was incurred by politically-correct individuals granted loans from customer deposits without security. The solution to this looming economic apocalypse is two-fold:

* Attach and auction the assets of those who directly or and indirectly facilitated the printing of paper money before the 1992 elections. It is they who should pay that part of the illegal domestic debt.

*Attach and auction all those assets of people who acquired unsecured loans.

Kariuki Muiri,

Nairobi.