• There's no problem with a poor young man but there's every problem with a poor old man," Igathe said of Kibaki's advice to the youth.
• He revealed that it was during president Kibaki's first tenure that he acquired his first asset courtesy of cheap bank loans borne of Kibaki's progressive economic policies.
Image: File
Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant Polycarp Igathe has lauded the late President Mwai Kibaki as a visionary economist who taught Kenyans the culture of savings.
In a candid interview with the Star on Tuesday soon after paying his last respects to the late president at Parliament Buildings, Igathe said his astute business acumen is largely borrowed from Kibaki.
"He fixed pension schemes, that please save a little money for your old age. There's no problem with a poor young man but there's every problem with a poor old man," Igathe said of Kibaki's advice to the youth.
"So this culture of savings and pension, he taught us," Igathe said.
He revealed that it was during President Kibaki's first term that he acquired his first asset courtesy of cheap bank loans borne of Kibaki's progressive economic policies.
"I took my first bank loan in the year 2004. I used to borrow only from SACCOs. A bank called me and told me we can give you 36 times what your payslip is worth without any security, I was amazed," Igathe said.
"So giving access to bank loans was massive and that didn't happen just to me, it happened to a lot of Kenyans."
Igathe said it was under the backdrop of increased liquidity that Kenya's economy grew incredibly fast during Kibaki's era.
"Liquidity is the oxygen of demand in an economy," he said.
Igathe said the late president will also be credited with the growth of the banking industry in Kenya, courtesy of Vision 2030.
He said economic policies developed under the ambitious economic blueprint enabled local banks which had been dwarfed by international banks to sprout into the giant financial institutions they are today.
"Before it used to be international banks - Barclays, Standard Chartered, today it's Co-operative, KCB, Equity," Igathe said.
He said Kibaki has also left an admirable legacy on infrastructure development, highlighting the Thika Superhighway, Lamu Port, and the internment and digitization of Kenya's economy.
"You remember how minister Fred Matiang'i even suffered a blackout from the media for weeks because of digital channels. Today, look at how many people are employed because Kibaki agreed to connect TIMS and SIMs," Igathe said.
In February 2015, Kenya's TV transmission underwent a transition from analogue to the digital signal, a move that required TV owners to acquire a set-top box to continue receiving a television signal.
Igathe said the transition is largely credited to Kibaki's introduction of the digital economy.
"Mpesa came under his time. Kibaki was always about light and that is his legacy."
The gubernatorial aspirant also recalled the late president as a great debater in Parliament and a person who put his point across calmly.
"I loved to read the memoirs and the Hansard about how he argued his points. He had a lot of respect for other people," Igathe said.