[Community-Discuss] Allegation of Harassment

[Owen DeLong]

I think it is quite chicken to direct replies to an anonymizing emailer. I have, therefore overridden the reply-to set on the original message.

> On Mar 19, 2018, at 08:00 , kaweshesichali <kaweshesichali at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Despite that this lady has raised this several times with the HR and CEO.

She has? What evidence do you have to support this claim? There’s nothing in the texts that says so.

There is just an allegation.

> Did the HR Manager did something to solve this issue??? The HR Manager is not competent at all in his field. He is USELESS. Why do we have a HR Manager is an organisation???

Again, do you have any evidence to support these allegations? I’m not saying they are or are not true, merely asking for evidence to support your accusations.

> . Many staffs left AFRINIC for several reasons, they have been pressurised, threatened, diminished, insulted, harassed, attacked, disrespected, bullied and many more.

Again, where is the proof to back up this allegation? What evidence do you have to support it?

> Some of them were fired.

OK, do you allege that they should not have been fired? It seems to me that there were some in need of firing.

> Again, USELESS HR !!

So you’re saying that it is the job of HR to avoid a company firing anyone? This is completely illogical.

> We do  not even know what is the role of the HR Manager at AFRINIC. What does he really do there? No proper documentation, no report concerning staffs departures, why staffs quit AFRINIC??? Nothing was done by the HR Manager.

This doesn’t exactly differ from how any other company is run, so I’m not sure what you are attempting to allege here.

As a general practice, most HR matters are considered confidential between the company and the employee and the information you describe above is generally not disclosed out of respect for the employees’ privacy.

> The CEO is responsible for the smooth running of the company and he needs to make sure that the company have a good culture.

Yes. This is true. However, do you have any specific areas where you feel this is not the case? Do you have specific actionable complaints about the conduct of the CEO with evidence to back them up? If so, then make your case with facts. The above speculative innuendo and accusations do not as yet have any supporting evidence and are vague and useless in terms of any corrective action which may be taken.

> AFRINIC still have an acting head of IT who is not competent at all.

Again, some evidence to support this would be useful.

> I remembered my previous AFRINIC meeting was a bad experience, we never got connected to the internet at Sofitel during AFRINIC meeting.

Are you saying that the AfriNIC head of IT is responsible for the running of the hotel network during an AfriNIC meeting? In my experience, AfriNIC IT has little to no control over hotel networks at meeting venues. It is true that AfriNIC usually brings in connectivity from a local sponsor for the actual conference network, but that’s usually only in the meeting areas and not the hotel rooms. Even then, it is primarily the local sponsor and the meeting team which are involved in delivering that connectivity and not the head of AfriNIC IT.

Most AfriNIC meetings I have attended have delivered reasonably good connectivity. Kigali was a notable exception, but at the time of the Kigali meeting, connectivity in Rwanda in general was pretty marginal and I think the team did the best they could with what they had available. The last meeting I attended was in Nairobi and I remember the connectivity there being quite good at the meeting site. I wasn’t able to attend the Lagos meeting, so I can’t speak directly to the connectivity for that event.

> What a joke, AFRINIC promote internet for the whole Africa. Till now no replacement have been done for the head of IT.  AFRINIC culture is becoming worse and worse !!!

Once again, with vague accusations and allegations. No evidence, no specific action items (other than a call to replace the head of IT without any specific complaints to back it up).

It is this kind of stirring of the pot in lieu of meritorious issue-based factual attempts to improve AfriNIC which is most damaging to the AfriNIC culture and to the community at large.

I’m not saying there are not problems to solve at AfriNIC. Indeed, I think there are several. However, I try to avoid making vague accusations and instead focus on constructive suggestions. May I humbly suggest you consider doing the same.

Owen