One of the longest serving university lecturers and chief economist of Rwanda’s national bank Prof. Thomas Kigabo has died of COVID-19, his family confirmed Friday in Kigali.
Prof. Kigabo succumbed to COVID-19 in Nairobi Kenya where he had gone to seek treatment earlier this week, a close relative to his family told APA.
A statement issued by the Central Bank said that Thomas Kigabo has a Ph.D in monetary, finance and international economics at University of LYON 2/France and a master’s in applied mathematics.
He joined the National Bank of Rwanda in 2007 as chief economist, after serving many years as Director, academic affairs and s Rector of Kigali Independent University.
He has been teaching several courses at the same university but also at University of Rwanda and Jomo Kenyatta University at Bachelor, Masters and Ph.D. levels.
The courses include econometrics, monetary economics, applied mathematics, and microeconomics. He has extensive experience in research in different areas including monetary policy, financial inclusion, issue related to financial sector development, development economics, regional integration among others.
Kigabo supervised or co-supervised PHD students in Rwanda and in different universities in Europe.
As chief economist of the National Bank of Rwanda, he played an important role in formulation and implementation of monetary policy in Rwanda and of Rwanda economic policies as well as the development of the financial sector.
He also played an important role in negotiation of policies with different stakeholders including the International Monetary Funds and the World Bank, it said.
Rwanda registered 5 new death from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 133, the Ministry of Health announced on Friday.
194 new cases were reported in the same period, bringing the total number of infections to 10,313.
A total of 6,974 patients have recovered from the virus since the first case was recorded in mid-March this year.
CU/as/APA