FROM SIMON MWEWA MARKET TO HH LUMUMBA MARKET

 

A TOTALLY unnecessary name change.

Local Government and Rural Development minister Gift Sialubalo did well to over-rule the Lusaka City Council's resolution to rename Simon Mwewa Market.

Was the name change meant to appease President Hakainde Hichilema?

From where I stand, unless I am mistaken, President Hichilema is not the kind of person who gets excited by such cheap patronage.

Why do some people want to underplay the great works the late Simon Cushi Mwewa did when he served as mayor and, later, governor of Lusaka?

Could it be because the late Dr Mwewa's son, Chitambala, is eyeing the Lusaka mayoral seat?

How ridiculously petty!

Dr Mwewa was the brainchild of the construction of Society House, now known as Society Business Park.

He also oversaw the construction of Chachacha House, Inter-City Bus Terminus and Alick Nkhata Road, among other numerous projects.

Here is something about Society House.

It was an idea that began in the United States (US).

At that time, Dr Mwewa was Lusaka mayor and Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS) managing director.

In 1977, Dr Mwewa and his wife, Florence, who is Dr Nevers Mumba's elder sister, had travelled to New York.

This is according to what Dr Mwewa told me in a 2004 interview at his Olympia Park residence on Manchinchi Road in Lusaka.

A day after arrival in the US, the couple took a walk downtown New York.

As they walked, Dr Mwewa could not stop gazing at the imposing skyscrapers.

His wife’s reaction was as encouraging as it teased him.

“Ba Mayor ba cabe-cabe [useless mayor]. What’s the problem with you Zambian men? Instead of just admiring these buildings, why don’t you put up something like this in your own country?” Mrs Mwewa challenged him.

“I’ll build a 40-storey building when we get back to Zambia,” Dr Mwewa reassured her.

Upon returning to Zambia, Dr Mwewa did not take long before beginning to actualise his dream of a 40-floor building.

As ZNBS managing director, he ensured that his institution bought off a complex housing up to 40 shops cutting across Cairo Road to Chachacha Road.

“I got authority to demolish the shops. I was condemned that I was introducing capitalist ideas. But in the end, we managed to evict all the shop owners. That was how Society House came about.”

But how did Society House end up with 18 floors instead of the planned 40 floors?

“I had organised money for a forty-storey building but I was told that . . ."

A controversial decision by the Finance Development Corporation stopped Dr Mwewa from constructing 40 floors.

What about Dr Mwewa's personal project, Simoson Building?

This is a project he began working on in 1985, three days after President Kenneth Kaunda retired him from both positions as governor of Lusaka and ZNBS managing director.

He had remained in both jobs since 1974 when President Kaunda had appointed him at the age of 30.

“In the Kaunda era, we never thought our jobs would come to an abrupt end. We thought KK [Kenneth Kaunda] would keep on appointing us. So, I retired like today, on a Friday, and, on Monday, I told Mrs Mwewa that ‘I’m going to town to find something to do.’”

As if by divine providence, the first stop Dr Mwewa made as he got into the Lusaka central business district was at the traffic lights on Lumumba road near where Simoson building now stands.

“I don’t know what came into my mind. The first stop I made was at the traffic lights. I opened the window and a young man building a wall fence came. I told him that I was looking for a plot to buy and he said ‘come and buy this one, sir’.

The young man explained that the owner of the plot had asked him to find a buyer.

That was how the Simoson building came about.

Forty-one years later, the Lusaka City Council has the audacity to sit and resolve to consign Dr Mwewa's memory to the dustbin of history.

What a shame!

In this picture, I am with Dr Mwewa at Hotel Edinburgh in Kitwe in 2004.

Credit: Kennedy Limwanya