 Mr. President, I beseech you, stop these people from doing this. They're going to turn the alley into a drug-infested haven. My neighbor Baba, who is an Indian man, said to me, because I'm Indian, they told me that I'm not a Zambian! How dare you! Oh, let's try this one more time. My sincere apologies. My brothers and sisters, please, whoever you are, wherever you are, first of all, thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to spend a few moments with me here on SML TV. Before I begin, I beseech you. I ask you, I urge you please, from the bottom of my heart, please, tag Honourable Garing Combo, who is the Minister of Local Government and Housing. Tag the Mayor, Ms. Chitangala. Tag your local Councilman. Tag the President. Because I'd like to talk about something that is deathly important. I think that I speak on behalf of every member of the business community when I say that the things I would like to share with you today are not only weighty, they are critical. During the NPF, during the reign, the tyrannical reign of the PF, there was an unwritten rule that was not to frequent this area. There was an unwritten rule that HH should not, could not come to this area. And there was a call sent out, and I'll never forget that, that was during Vardeva Smila. He was the Secretary General of the NPF at that time. And he sent out a command. He said that HH was never to step foot in the CBD, in particular, was never to step foot in city market. If he does that, then there would be wrath and hell to pay. Of course I'm paraphrasing, but he meant the same. Now, had HH decided to be boisterous, if he decided to be the starring, if he decided to exert and sort of push his weight around, and had he been defiant and come to city market during the time of the NPF, my brothers and sisters, hundreds upon hundreds of people would have died. That's not an exaggeration. That's not a fallacy. That's not something that I'm talking about from thin air. That is a fact and I know it to be true because I have been here for 33 years. I know the ecosystem of this area. And through his wisdom, HH decided to stay away. Why? Because he put service above everything else. He set aside his ego. He set aside his bravado. And he said I would rather look ashamed than to hear and see that hundreds of people were slaughtered on the count of me showing up at a market. Now, I said all of that to say this. We've come from a mighty long way as a people. That dark, dense part of our history is a part of history that we look upon and we shudder to think. We say to ourselves in the most silence, in the most silent of nights, we say to ourselves never again, never again should we ever live under an iron fist of tyranny. Never again should we ever be subjected to that type of humiliation where people that call themselves paticadas seem to have the upper hand and that no law applies to them, that they are law unto themselves, never again. And so when we ushered in this new administration, one of the first things that HH said was that there would be no catarism. Of course, we know that catarism still exists, but in the tepid form, it's not as concentrated and as dense as in the PF. But what is beginning to happen now is worrisome. And I'm going to share this with you now. Symoson Building. I know many of you call it ugly and it is. I know many of you call it names and you're fine to do that. But Symoson Building is not really worth a lot of money. What's worth the money is the location. Our location is worth a lot of money. It's not the building. And because our location is so attractive, it attracts the wrong type of people. I tell you quite frankly and honestly, over the last several weeks, we've seen street vendors being moved from our streets but being relocated to Simon, Maryland. Now, before some of you start saying, well, the road doesn't belong to you, I've never ever said the road belongs to me. I've never claimed that. That's just some people that try to make trouble, that try to make me look like I own the street. I don't. I'm just a member of the business community in this area. And as such, all I ever want to do is to have a clean environment. If you've ever been to Symoson, you know very well what we do here. We have four cleaning cycles. We make sure that the front, the inside of our building is litter-free. We do our best to do that. And we're very proud of that. But here it is, in the last several weeks, we've seen vendors move from Lumumba Road, Cairo Road, Chacha Road, Freedom Way, and they have come here. And from the very beginning, I asked, why? Why is that? Why can we not make sure that all of our vendors, all of our traders are pushed into the markets? Why must they come to Simon Moir Lane? I have asked that question to every counselor, to every government official. Not a single person can give me a reason why. I have just discovered that this whole operation was applied by UPND cadres to make money off of street vendors. Are you hearing this? The UPND cadres have misled the local authority. The UPND cadres have misled the local authority. They told the local authority that let's move the street vendors from Simon Moir Lane into the alleyways of the business community so that we free up Simon Moir Lane. I, from the very beginning, have been opposed to that suggestion. Why? Because I've always maintained that alleyways are not designed for street vending. Alleyways are not designed for trading. Alleyways are service lanes where you bring heavy equipment or things that you want to offload, you go to the alley. Or if you're collecting your garbage, those are the two reasons alleyways exist. But here it is, these UPND cadres who are led by a man by the name of Michelo, a man by the name of Oga, a woman by the name of Veronica. And these are people that always frequent Simo-San. They walk into Simo-San like they own the place. They walk around here like the be all and end all. And they walk into Simo-San doing nothing but threatening us every day, all day, every day. One of the things I said to the local authority and I imposed myself in that meeting, I said there's not a single business owner in this meeting where you are deciding that street vendors should move from Simon Mualane into the alleyways. There's not a single business owner in this meeting. This meeting is full of cadres. Cadres who own no property. Cadres who pay no council rates. Cadres who have no employees. This meeting should be full of stakeholders, myself, Baba, everybody that owns a business in this community should be in this meeting. But they're not here. Instead, the local authority invited cadres to determine the destiny of this community. No, sir. We're not going to have that. That's not going to happen. How dare you? How dare you listen to cadres over the business community? How dare you? A cadra who's nothing but a criminal. These guys that I've mentioned to you, they're all criminals with records as long as my arm. And these are the people that you're going to allow in our stead? No, sir. We've come a long way. 33 years I've been sitting here. I've seen it all. I'll be very frank with you and I'll be honest with you. I'm getting old. My body is tired. My soul is weary. How much longer are you going to fight with cadres? How much longer am I going to sit in my office and wonder will they come here, break down my door, threaten me all day, every day? How long? I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm not ashamed to tell you, but I'm tired. I'm tired. I don't want to fight cadres anymore. I'm tired. I want to be able to come to work and just enjoy my work. Earlier today, these UPND cadres stormed my office and they warned me. They said, if I keep pushing this agenda, they will beat us up. They will destroy and burn this building. I'm tired. Gary, listen to me. Stop these people from doing this. Mr. President, I beseech you. Stop these people from doing this. They're going to turn the alley into a drug-infested haven. My neighbor, Baba, who is an Indian man, said to me, because I'm Indian, they told me that I'm not a Zambian. How dare you! Stop it. We don't want cadres in the alleyway. We don't. We want the alleyway to be used for what it's supposed to be used for. Deliveries and garbage collection. Not a cadre telling me that I can't take my garbage in the back because the alleyway belongs to Ichipani. How dare you!