Perhaps former late Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange can well be described through a character (Manna Leitao) in Peter Nazareth's short story, Moneyman, when it came to matters of money and spending.
Leitao, for beginners, is a selfish man who does not spare even himself from his own selfishness because of his avarice and excessive love of money.
Koinange, a brother-in-law of late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and a trusted confidant, apparently had similar traits despite the fact that he was powerful and filthy rich by all standards.
According to a former Coast Provincial Commissioner the late Eliud Mahihu, once speaking to Sunday Nation, revealed that Koinange would wear one pair of shoes until it was worn out to the last stitch.
When asked about it, the paper reports, Koinange the first Kenyan to get a university degree in 1938, would get philosophical.
"I have never understood why one would need more than one pair of shoes when they have only one pair of legs," Koinange, who was also Kiambaa MP used to argue.
And if you thought Koinange was in this matter of shoes and legs alone, you are damn wrong because he had a successor or should I say inheritor.
The late Cabinet Minister John Michuki played in the same league too. Many can recall a press photograph taken of Michuki in torn socks and when the photo became a matter of 'public debate', he had this to tell journalists during a press conference.
"Even you journalists have at least one torn piece of item in your wardrobes," he said in what was interpreted to mean that one only had to buy a new piece of clothing if it was a must, not just to fill the wardrobe.
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