The Editor Zambia
The continued existence and operations of the so-called National Action for Quality Education in Zambia, commonly known as NAQEZ, is rapidly becoming one of the clearest examples of regulatory failure under the office of the Registrar of Societies.
The law cannot be selective. It cannot be enforced aggressively against ordinary citizens and smaller associations, while politically motivated entities like NAQEZ masquerading as civil society organisations are allowed to operate with impunity. 
For far too long, NAQEZ and its Executive Director, Dr. Aaron Chansa have weaponised the education sector to politically push a sustained campaign of hostility against the government of President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration.
What is even more shocking is that despite detailed complaints and documented allegations of non-compliance submitted to the Registrar of Societies by the UPND, there has been no decisive action.
This silence is unacceptable. The Registrar’s office has reportedly received multiple formal complaints outlining serious irregularities within NAQEZ.
These include governance failures, unclear registration structures, lack of transparency regarding executive leadership, questionable membership levies imposed on teachers, and activities allegedly designed to undermine legally recognised teachers’ unions.
Any one of these concerns should have warranted immediate investigations. Combined, they paint the picture of an organisation operating outside the spirit and letter of the law.
What exactly is protecting NAQEZ?
The Ministry of Education itself has reportedly clarified that it has never signed any Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NAQEZ since the organisation’s formation in 2015.
This is a devastating revelation because for years, NAQEZ has projected itself as a legitimate stakeholder with official standing in the education sector.
If no formal recognition existed, then the organisation has been surviving on carefully cultivated public deception.
Even more disturbing is the organisation’s increasingly political posture. Genuine civil society organisations critique governments constructively and professionally.
But NAQEZ has become notorious for sensational and inflammatory statements clearly crafted to embarrass and delegitimise government.
Its latest attack on the UPND administration, claiming that the government scored only 35 percent on quality education, is not merely misleading but intellectually dishonest.
This is the same government that abolished school fees, expanded access to education, introduced school feeding programmes, restored meal allowances for university students, increased CDF bursaries, and recruited thousands of teachers.
Even NAQEZ itself was forced to acknowledge these achievements before launching into its predictable political assault.
One cannot praise a government for historic reforms and then proceed to package the entire education system as a disaster simply to manufacture political headlines.
The truth is that Zambia’s education sector challenges did not begin in 2021. The learning deficits, infrastructure gaps, and teacher welfare concerns being discussed today are inherited structural problems accumulated over decades, particularly during the disastrous rule of the Patriotic Front (PF).
The UPND government has been in office for less than a full generation yet has already undertaken the most
ambitious education expansion programme in modern Zambian history.
What NAQEZ cannot tolerate is that the UPND administration is succeeding where others failed.
The organisation’s conduct has now gone beyond advocacy into outright political agitation. Reports that teachers are being pressured to abandon recognised unions in favour of loyalty to NAQEZ-aligned structures should alarm every law-abiding citizen.
Zambia’s teachers deserve independent representation through legally established unions, not through personality cults built around individuals seeking political relevance.
The creation of the Aaron Chansa Foundation only deepens suspicion. The overlap between the foundation’s activities and NAQEZ’s increasingly partisan rhetoric raises legitimate questions about whether education advocacy is simply being used as camouflage for political mobilisation against government.
This is why the Registrar of Societies can no longer afford to remain passive.
If ordinary organisations can be deregistered for failing to comply with constitutional requirements, failing to disclose office bearers, or operating outside their mandates, why is NAQEZ receiving special treatment?
Is there one law for government critics and another for everyone else?
The Registrar must understand that deregistering an organisation operating in violation of the law is not suppression of democracy.
It is the protection of institutional integrity. Civil society must be accountable, transparent, and lawful. Anything less creates dangerous precedents where rogue entities exploit public sectors for political warfare.
President Hakainde Hichilema has consistently preached the rule of law, accountability, and order. Those principles must apply equally to organisations hiding behind activism while engaging in politically motivated attacks.
The people of Zambia deserve genuine education advocacy, not politically sponsored propaganda disguised as civil society work.
The Registrar of Societies must stop procrastinating, stop hiding behind bureaucracy, and act decisively.
The continued failure to deregister NAQEZ is no longer just administrative negligence. It is complicity.
