[rpd] Discussion about e-voting

Thu May 15 15:46:41 UTC 2014

Hello Kofi,

On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 2:25 PM, Kofi ansa akufo <kofi.ansa at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Scenario: A prospective member applies to be a resourced member of
> AFRINIC. His application gets approved after COMPLYING with policy. AFRINIC
> billing department issues two invoices namely i.) Initial Setup Fees $4000
> and ii.) Annual Membership Fees $12,800 as well as Registration Service
> Agreement (RSA).
>
Just to be clear, do you mean 2 separate invoices were issued? Or that an
invoice that has 2 category of charges was issued? (which should be the
onetime setup fee and membership fee)

> There are NO payment deadlines on both invoices neither does any staff
> member of AFRINIC communicate such to applicant.
>
Again you say both invoices, it implies you were issued 2 separate
invoices. Could you confirm this? As i think it will definitely determine
how to address the situation. I also agree that there is usually no
deadline stated on invoices, however there are guidelines on the RSA(and on
payment schedule) and those will be applied depending on your nature of
application in relation to the date stated on the invoice.
Fortunately/unfortunately new membership timing on expiry procedure seem
not to be clearly specific on the payment schedule.

> Nevertheless the applicant proceeds to sign the RSA which outlines a
> contractual agreement between AFRINIC and the applicant. Applicant further
> proceeds to make payment of initial setup fees of $4000 and request for
> annual membership fees to be paid in parts due to recent Forex transfer
> restrictions in country of operation. AFRINIC denies the request for
> payment in parts although they allow that in certain cases as stated on
> their website.
>
Okay, again this still assumes that 2 separate invoices were issued right?

>  The applicant request an invoice update due to elapsed time (2 months)
> and AFRINIC never responds to the request.
>
Just to be clear, what updated invoice is required here? since the
understanding is that 2 invoices were initially issued.

> AFRINIC staff respond to member on the 89th day of a so called "90 days"
> period in which application needs to be finalized. This 90 days is not
> published anywhere in policy, website or communicated to applicant during
> the application process.   Nevertheless again the applicant responds that
> they are awaiting invoice update before payment.
>
At this point you refer to the applicant as member, does it mean that
AFRINIC has confirmed payment of 4kUSD and that made the applicant now a
member?(as i think that was setup fee and not membership) nevertheless what
invoice update is the "applicant" expecting

> AFRINIC staff finally respond that the application has expired contrary to
> what is defined in the executed RSA and further tell applicant the initial
> setup fees of $4000 paid is non-refundable and that applicant needs to put
> in a new application.
>
Hmm...on the basis that there is no clear indication of new applicant
payment deadline, i would expect that the 4k should be refunded. However on
the basis that things may have changed in the organisation as per how
resources are allocated, i would think its good judgement to start the
application over again. Don't you think so?

> These are some of the kinds of frustration applicants face with certain
> staff members who refuse to stick to policies as well as contractual
> agreements.
>
This is a peculiar case and i must say that its an unfortunate coincidence
that fx rules of the country/organisation changed almost immediately before
making payment. As i would have expected that the applicant was aware of
the cost before signing the RSA. Actually as a point of practice, before i
make any resource application, i do hint management on cost implication.
Can we assume that the applicant was perhaps not prepared to make that
payment in the first place?

>
> So is this specific case justified for fellow community members to rally
> behind and knock on the doors of the CEO and AFRINIC to ask why the
> consequence of inefficiency on the part of certain staff and procedures in
> AFRINIC should be borne by a member :)
>
Depending on your response to my questions/concerns above

Regards

>  Cheers.
>  On May 15, 2014 2:49 PM, "Seun Ojedeji" <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Kofi,
>>
>> Let me say a few personal words below
>>
>> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Kofi ansa akufo <kofi.ansa at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> I draw typical examples below;
>>>
>>> 1. The core activity of AFRINIC is managing internet resources for the
>>> Region. What is seen now is more or less a passive approach to evaluation
>>> of prospective members for resources. AFRINIC staff makes it difficult to
>>> get resources
>>>
>> Hmm...maybe we should say the community makes it difficult, considering
>> that staff will only follow community developed policy to allocate
>> resources. Nevertheless i am not even sure that difficult is the right word
>> to use here. Perhaps if you have specific concerns of scenarios where you
>> meet all the requirement and it still seem difficult to get the resource,
>> then you could share with the community and we can go banging on the doors
>> of staff with placard ;-)
>>
>>> YET when resources are granted there is little or no follow up processes
>>> to check if it is even being used in the region. A quick check in the whois
>>> database of AFRINIC indicates a /13 IPv4 that was issued last year which is
>>> not even used in the region. Lost of job creation opportunity on the
>>> continent.
>>>
>> +1 with this, and i so much agree with you that there needs to be a
>> better way to retain major part of our IP within our region, not just
>> retaining but also seeing it used and empowering people in this continent;
>> Our resources needs to drive our continent development. We all should to
>> remember that AFRINIC among all the RIRs has the least number of IANA
>> assigned /8 V4.
>>
>> The fact that we have the least of IANA allocated /8 among all the RIR
>> has also recently placed us on top of all other RIRs as the region with
>> most available v4 addresses. However we are at this present status-quo not
>> because we don't have the population to consume the resource but because
>> either the population is not enabled to consume it OR does not want to. The
>> latter is the immediate reason; if most mobile networks go native public v4
>> you can bet that IP addresses we have left will be exhausted. I will liken
>> this situation with our mineral resources; Africa is blessed with mineral
>> resources, however most of the resources are shipped out of the continent
>> with its refined produce imported back into the continent. Something
>> similar is already happening in the IP space in that the resources are
>> shipped abroad and we get connected to our IP (outside the continent) at
>> our own expense.
>>
>> Okay enough of trying to describe the situation we currently are. The
>> most important question is what is the way forward.
>>
>> The way forward is for the community to look at the existing policies
>> used by AFRINIC to issue resource with the aim of "tightening possible
>> loose ends" towards ensuring that the IP resource benefits the region.
>> There are areas of concern that were presented by staff during afrinic
>> 18[1], i think that could be a good starting point. While there is another
>> f2f around the corner, i encourage everyone to take up this challenge by
>> looking at our existing policy and proposing an update or even an entirely
>> new proposal. Some of this can be discussed at the upcoming f2f meeting
>>
>>> Solution: the very IP resources we seek to manage is evolving in a
>>> technology which is dissolving geographic barriers. AFRINIC should then be
>>> seen as a key partner for our region to ensure that infrastructures are
>>> established in our region to create jobs through standard policies which
>>> will continuously monitor the activities and link or tie prospective
>>> investors to the region rather than turn them off or frustrate them and
>>> later grant them huge chunks of resources to be used outside the region.
>>>
>> While one can definitely not determine/restrict how a member should use
>> his/her IP resource, one could set certain requirements before granting the
>> resource and those could be related to infrastructure presence,
>> organisation activity history in Africa et all. All these can be reflected
>> in a policy, i again call on the community to stand up to this challenge.
>> The CEO has also recently indicated this concern in his statement [2] and
>> calls for urgent attention of the community for v4 and v6 deployment in
>> Africa.
>>
>>> 2. AFRINIC currently adopts "see the trees from the forest" approach
>>> with respect to training programs (e.g. IPv6 training). There are currently
>>> more than three active Research and  Education Networks (REN), Association
>>> of African Universities (AAU) as well as African Network Operators Group
>>> (AfNOG) - specialized groups. What I see as a better and far reaching
>>> impact is to collaborate with these groups to tailor curriculum and draw
>>> standards. Follow up with program monitoring and audits. I believe this
>>> should NOT be a long term goal. IPv6 awareness and adoption will have being
>>> considerable high.
>>>
>>> 3. Again the RIR should be seen playing a regulatory role. Recent years
>>> has seen considerable internet exchange spring up each with their own
>>> operating guidelines for membership and peering. What AFRINIC should be
>>> doing is to collaborate with key stakeholders (governments, submarine cable
>>> providers, service providers through AfNOG) to draft various standards and
>>> architectutes to be adhered to. (for example encourage distributed / or
>>> linked national and regional exchanges.
>>>
>> I think there are efforts in the areas mentioned above, nevertheless i
>> agree that more efforts needs to be put in place. However there is a saying
>> that; "you can only take a horse to the river, you can't force it to drink
>> water". There are quite many service provider that are aware of the need to
>> go v6 and that also know the disadvantage of NATing (to be an incentive to
>> deploy native v4 as much as possible) however they ain't doing that because
>> they havn't see the demand. So for me i think we will experience a boost if
>> we improve support of Africa content development/initiatives that are IP
>> demanding (internet of things) which will change the demand of end users.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> One will argue how does this approach impact AFRINIC members directly
>>> and increase meeting turnout and subsequent voting participation?
>>>
>> It can either impact it positively or negatively depending on the rules
>> and guideline we have provided. Afrinic will be 10 but its still relatively
>> young and we need to start setting policies that will make it sustainable
>> and more community driven.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Kind regards
>> 1.
>> http://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-18/sites/default/files/Madhvipolicy-implementation-report.pdf
>> 2.
>> http://www.afrinic.net/en/library/news/1101-arin-nears-ipv4-depletion-afrinic-reaffirms-the-need-for-urgent-ipv6-deployment
>>
>>> Kofi
>>> On May 15, 2014 6:05 AM, "Adiel Akplogan" <adiel at afrinic.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 15, 2014, at 24:26 AM, Kofi ansa akufo <kofi.ansa at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Hello Adiel and All
>>>> >
>>>> > Interesting discussion.
>>>> >
>>>> > Forgive me to play the devils advocate for a while - few questions
>>>> below regarding the immediate past election for board members.
>>>> >
>>>> > 1. What was the total votes casts?
>>>> >
>>>> > 2. How many votes were cast as proxy votes?
>>>>
>>>> See my previous mail for the above.
>>>>
>>>> > 3. How many individuals voted more than once due to being associated
>>>> to more than one member?
>>>>
>>>> 8 out of 45. Knowing that all board members (registered members) that
>>>> are also valid contact of resource members get 2 votes.
>>>>
>>>> > 4. What was the total active members as at the time of opening voting?
>>>>
>>>> About 750 members. This data can be dynamically checked at:
>>>> http://www.afrinic.net/en/about-us/our-members
>>>>
>>>> > 5. How many votes were cast through ballot paper at the election?
>>>>
>>>> 45.
>>>>
>>>> > 6. Do we have a minimum number of votes casted (%) relative to the
>>>> number of active members to determine dismissal or approval of the election?
>>>>
>>>> That is not set anywhere. but for the past year we have been dealing
>>>> with around 10% ratio. Which as I mentioned in my previous mail is
>>>> relatively the same thing for all RIRs. So even though we are aiming at
>>>> better, we are not an exception (with the ressou=rces we have).
>>>>
>>>> - a.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb:
>> http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt
>> email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
>> <seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*
>>
>> The key to understanding is humility - my view !
>>
>>
>>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb:      http://www.fuoye.edu.ng
<http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt email:
<http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
<seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*

The key to understanding is humility - my view !
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