 Good evening fellow citizens. Well, this evening I'm prompted to talk to you concerning the issue of Lord Shedding in our country. This morning I was taken aback when there was a secular from Zesco, which was indicating that now power will have to go for about 2 hours in a day. And the irony of this all is that power is going at about 05. Like here where we are in our place, power goes at 05 and it comes back at 18 hours. Meaning that the whole day people are unable to do anything productive. In other areas it is going at 8 and coming back at 20 hours. In other areas power is going at about 10, coming back at 22 hours. The productive hours are the hours that we are getting affected. We are having power go at a time when people should be very productive. Meaning that the whole country now is coming to a close. Basically Zambia is being closed. Basically the country is getting closed. I think I would want to deal on three factors with Zesco. I want Zesco to consider three factors. The first factor is that the time that power is going is the time that it is prime time. Prime time in the sense that you have people running barbershops, people running saloons, people running all kinds of businesses, especially in our townships. And once these people have no electricity, it is becoming a big challenge for them to do their business. I think this should be considered seriously by Zesco. The second issue is that the hours have been made to belong. And of course some people will argue that indeed the water levels are low. But this is contrary to what we are promised by the president in May. The president had said the issue of low trading had been sorted out. But from what we are seeing, the problem of Zesco has not been dealt with. And I wonder why the president went ahead to issue such a statement. The statement that the president made was basically reckless. He should not have said what he said. You don't assure a nation because what comes from the president is almost sacrosanct. You don't assure a nation and then the following day you are given a different statement by your minister of energy. I think this is very bad. We are having a rodeo. The other issue that I would want to age government is that while we are having these challenges of power, government has maintained the issue of exporting the same megawatts they were exporting before we had this crisis. We now have a gigantic crisis before us. Very gigantic crisis. We have a problem. And that problem must be looked at very critically. Why has government continued to export the same megawatts of power to Namibia? Why has government continued to export the same megawatts of power to South Africa? Today we are struggling just to a close. Government must quickly begin rethinking how they can best handle the issue of power outages. Coupled with that, it is important that government begins to be thinking of long-term investments in the energy sector. GFM, nuclear energy. Government must begin considering solar a lot when the propelled energy. These might be long-term, but they will answer the challenges of the hydropower deficits. Yes, one cannot refuse that there is a challenge in the Kariba with the water levels. But the president told us that the problem was generators and that government had procured those gents. And therefore the problem was dissolved. But today we are now having 12 hours of load shading. You have got people living in the townships, struggling. You have got people living wherever we are living here, struggling. It is important that government considers this. As a result of that, we are going to be consulting ourselves. Myself and the opposition together with my colleagues, we will be consulting. We will be talking to one another, probably tomorrow, to begin seeing at how best we can assist this government. To first of all stop lying to the people of Zambia. And then secondly, for them to stop being reactive but being proactive. You cannot have a government that is failing to tell the people of Zambia the truth. I think that should never happen. People must be taught. If the president had told us in May that of the problem of power at this time around, things would have been understood. But he said the problem was dealt with. And he keeps on dodging the issue. There's a video going around on social media which is saying, those of you who are having power cuts, can you raise your hand? The president is asking at the press briefing status. Clearly, the president and his team are detached from reality. It is important that this issue of ZESCO is properly explained to the Zambian citizens. You just can say, no, six hours. When you are coming up with six hours? You didn't know that the other neighbors were that low that you cannot sustain six hours. Why all of a sudden? Why all of a sudden have you decided to say it should be 12 hours? Why? In the first place, you told us it's six hours. Hardly a week has passed. You have told us now it is 12 hours. We don't know what to expect. And that 12 hours, power is not even going for 12 hours. You see power going for over 16 hours. There are some compounds. There are some homes, as we speak, who have not had power from yesterday. They have not had power. And yet, the president is telling us to raise your hands. Those of you who are still having power outages. Mr. President, we are having power outages. We are having an economic blackout because your power, your ZESCO, is disconnecting us during the time that we are being switched off. I think ZESCO should again reconsider the time that they are switching us off. Maybe they should be switching us off in the night if they want on people sleeping. But to be switched off during productive hours is not only unfair, but it is really depriving the country of the economic prosperity we are talking about. On one hand, this government is talking about promoting the SMEs. On the other hand, the same SMEs are being suffocated. As we speak, foreign conglomerates, those running mines, those running big industries are not affected. The ones who are being affected heavily. It's us, the consumers, are the domestic consumers. This should be looked at. And I think we have made proposals as citizens first, which government must seriously begin considering because we cannot proceed like this. Zambia is almost closing. We are almost closing our country. Economically, it is closing. If you cannot have power during the day, if you are going to block us out for most of the day, then what are we going to do? Because all the productive hours are gone. Then power comes. It has come just now like here where I am. Power has just come. In the next three hours, it went for 12 hours, 16 hours it went. In the next four hours, the power will be going. This should not be the case. So my appeal to government is be proactive, study your memorandum of understanding with the countries that you signed, and see how best you can adjust. Desperate times require desperate solutions. Desperate moments require desperate answers. And therefore, at a time such as this, it is paramount that government must quickly begin looking at those memorandum of understanding and see if we can make adjustments. We just can't stick to giving them the same megawatts when you own people suffering. I think even within the framework of the psychic power pool to which Zambia is a signatory, it doesn't say that we should be suffering to give out power to psychic member states when we ourselves are also struggling. At whose expense are we doing it? The South Africans were selling power to. I've got few man hours. I've got few hours of load shedding as compared to ourselves who are selling power. The Namibians were selling power to. I've got very few hours of load shedding as compared to us who are selling. It's not making economic sense. And I think let us wake up as government. Let us begin running. And when we tell you this, it's not out of malice. We are saying this because it is important that you should begin taking your people seriously. We thank you. Hope you've listened. But we are going to be monitoring this situation very closely. And we are not going to be politicizing for the sake of just talking. We want you the government to know that it is citizens that you are presiding over. It is human beings. We just don't begin changing rules and telling them half bad stories and expect to get out with it. We'll stand up to you and we'll make sure that you do what is right. We will not allow you to continue taking us for granted. We will not allow Zesco to just wake up and begin cutting power just as they wish during the productive hours of the day. Please rethink. Rethink. And then if we are having these blackouts now, when is rent season? What about when it is to be in October? In rent season we are struggling like this. What about when it will be in October? It will be a disaster in the dry season or when it will not be in the rent season. So we are asking government to please begin reconsidering the hours that you are cutting us off power. Begin considering the time that you are cutting us off power. Make us be productive. Let the people with barbershops wake. Let the people with saloons wake. Let the welding machines. People with welding machines wake. Let people with butcheries wake. Let people who are selling all kinds of things that are hinging on electricity let them wake. When will they wake? If you don't give them a chance now. If you are load shedding them at 9 hours. You are load shedding them at 11 hours. Productive hours. Begin thinking of load shedding people at 22 hours. 22 to 04. In that people will have slept and then will have power during the course of the day. Zambia we are together. We can assure citizens that hours is not to be malicious. Hours is to provide proper checks and balances. And that we should do, we are in this together. But our friends in government are beginning to be very insincere. Very inconsiderate. And we will stand up to them and make them do the right thing. God bless you. And may he bless this our Republic of Zambia. I thank you.