DONOR AID HAS TURNED ZAMBIANS INTO PROFESSIONAL BEGGARS AND LAZY THINKERS – NYIRENDA
The FOX Newspaper
Businessman Stephen Nyirenda has come out guns blazing, blaming foreign aid for destroying Zambia’s mindset and work ethic. Speaking on Burning Issue with Zacharia Banda on 5FM Radio, Nyirenda who is also Munthu Party President, said the country has become addicted to handouts, abandoning self-reliance and hard work in favour of dependency and complacency.
“Zambians no longer think for themselves,” he said. “We’ve become beggars. We wait for foreigners to tell us what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. And we’ve convinced ourselves that’s normal.”
Commenting on Zambia’s dependency on foreign aid, Nyirenda said this aid has slowly crippled the government’s ability to function independently. Ministries, he argued, have become spectators—failing to act unless donor funding is available.
“Even basic things like providing medicine, desks in schools, or fixing a borehole are left hanging until some foreign organisation releases funds. What kind of sovereignty is that?” he asked.
He further stated that instead of encouraging productivity and responsibility, aid has trained citizens to sit back and wait. The result, he claimed, is a country that has stopped thinking critically and working creatively.
“Our youth don’t dream of building businesses or solving problems anymore. They dream of getting contracts from NGOs, sitting in workshops, collecting allowances, eating free lunch and going home with a T-shirt. That’s the ambition now. And it’s pathetic,” Nyirenda said.
He warned that this dependency is not just financial—it’s psychological. According to him, Zambians have surrendered their intellectual independence. Foreign consultants with no understanding of local context are the ones now dictating how we farm, how we learn, and how we govern.
“We’ve handed over our brains. Foreigners are telling us how to run our country, and we’re clapping for them. We’re so deep into this addiction that we no longer feel the shame of begging. We’ve even institutionalised it.”
Nyirenda didn’t hold back in describing the long-term damage aid has caused.
“This is not help—it’s slow poisoning. It looks like assistance, but it’s killing our spirit. Killing our creativity. Killing the urgency to fix our own problems.”
He challenged Zambians to reject this mindset and rediscover the pride of building with their own hands.
“Foreign aid didn’t just fail us—it infected us. It taught us to survive instead of thrive. If we don’t snap out of it, we’ll remain underdeveloped not because we lack resources, but because we lack the will to use them.”
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