I wanna point out something else - and I realize that this is going to be controversial and cause much screaming - but it needs to be said.

If these POA's exist (and I have serious doubts about that ) - for a POA to be granted, it would have to be granted by someone who has the delegated authority to grant such - that being a director of the company.  

Now - last I checked, a company can issue a POA to whoever it wants - provided that the POA was issued by someone who had the authority to issue it.  So, even if these POA's do exist - provided they were issued by someone with the authority to do so  - there is absolutely nothing that can be done about that.  Unless you are saying we should now dictate to companies how they do their business.  We might not LIKE it, it might not be what we consider ethical, but - if a POA was legitimately issued (as in issued by someone who had authority to do so) - then it is what it is.

Now, lets consider the alternative in the way elections used to be conducted.  If you had someones myafrinic password, you could vote on their behalf.  Those individuals who had access to the MyAfrinic accounts were, from what I can see, mostly technical people and probably not directors, and probably did not have the authority to give away that access - but could have done so anyway.  In that scenario - yes - I would be extremely worried about the legitimacy of votes under the old system - because of the risk of credential sharing.

But with POA's - and the requirements involved in issuing them and getting them signed - I don't have concerns - because a company has the right to issue a POA to whoever they damn well want to, provided it was legitimately issued by someone with authority to do so.  If a POA is presented that was *NOT* legitimately issued by a director - then whoever is presenting it is commiting fraud, and should be held accountable.  if you have evidence of fraudulent POA's - then - that needs to be disclosed.  Otherwise - the situation is what the situation is.

I also have a problem with the fact that every time someone disagrees with something with regards to AfriNIC - they are suddenly labelled as being in cahoots with Lu Heng.  I find this frankly offensive - because it implies that anyone who has a differing opinion is suddenly taking the side of someone else - and gives zero credence to the fact that some of us have independent minds, can think for ourselves, and have put substantial work into understanding the bylaws, the mauritian companies act, and the relevant legislation. It would seem to me that certain parties have become so entrenched in their hatred of Lu Heng, that its become a very easy card to play when you disagree with someone, just pretend they are tied to Lu Heng.

It's absolute nonsense - and it's not conducive to a discussion on the facts, the legal angles, what the bylaws state, what the companies act states, and what the rights of corporate entities are in respect to how they delegate their powers.  

Andrew


On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 12:47 PM Hendrik Visage <hvisage@hevis.co.za> wrote:


> On 17 Jun 2025, at 07:55, Andrew Alston via zanog-discuss <zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
>
> If you read the order that they cited from the 12th of September in it’s entirely the court already acknowledged that compliance with the bylaws wasn’t practical but directed the election to proceed irrespective of that.

So to summarize Andrew: "just do as you pleases Mr OR, we don’t care if you alienate the resources members across Africa”, is that correct interpretation Andrew?

> Secondly - I keep hearing about these POAs - do we have numbers or evidence of these?  Because what I have heard so far is nothing more than speculation, and I until I see evidence of such, I have a very hard time believing that directors of companies would hand out power of attorney to third parties in this manner. To do so would be nothing short of insane - a POA is a not something you just hand out. Are we blocking an election based purely on speculation or is there real evidence?

I’ve seem the evidences of those, not shareable for various reasons.
Actually, some “Examples” shown as “proof” that the NRS representative have actual POAs in hand, was also quite… fruadulent.

> Thirdly - while I agree the new member thing is problematic - I would like to know of the 2200+ members how many members we are talking about.  The problem with the new members post September 2023 is that without a delegation of authority from the previous legitimate board, and in the absence of a chief executive officer, there is no one who could bind AfriNIC to a contractual relationship other than the recover himself.  This calls into question the legal validity of any MSA signed post September 2023 unless it was signed by the OR.

This is debatable.

> On a forth note - I honestly do believe that the procedure in place makes it harder - not easier - to rig the election, since under the old system any techie with the right to vote could hand out their password and let someone vote on their behalf, that became impossible under the new system, so I actually applaud the new checks and balances to ensure a legitimate vote.

Actually, as I’ve noticed last night, this is the Kansas shuffle.. a magic trick to keep your eyes focussed on the election etc. while NRS/CIL has others plans in play (like CIL becoming a “member” of AfriNIC -> and the OR haven’t explained this yet!!) The POAs had other aspects in play too, so yes, those POAs needs to be taken seriously by the OR.

The problem: The previous SECURE Internet e-voting system is now called “insecure” and the needs for POAs to do in-person voting in Muaritius becomes and interest point to note as a method to rig the election.

At this point in time, I have no confidence that the OR is in any ways unbiased, so the elections would be a psyops to feed the hungry just enough, while they plan the real thing elsewhere.

> Finally - the functions of the nomcom as described in section 9.2 (I believe it’s 9.2 - don’t have the bylaws in front of me) have been fulfilled to the letter of the bylaws.  I also note the bylaws explicitly say that the board of directors appoints the nomcom - we have no board - and that the chief executive officer appoints the election comm - we have no ceo and in his place we have a receiver, who has explicit authority to do this.

Again, your focus is not on the real problem(s), but the sideshow.

> The limits of the receivers authority are made clear in that September 12th order when you read it in conjunction with the eighth schedule of the insolvency act.

YEah, and in those eight schedules, the OR at least acts fraudulently (based on invoices paid and resources not issued for >4months) and against the “normal business” of AfriNIC. So yes, that is contradictory and biased imho

> I have also asked repeatedly for TISPA to share the application made to the court to get this order, and I find it ironic that people are crying about transparency yet no one cares about the fact that the member base is not getting any transparency into what that application actually said, and therefore cannot gauge the truthfulness of what was submitted to the court. Let’s see the application - that’s called transparency.

Just as half the AfriNIC/CIL court orders, those you’ll most probably will have to issue a court order to get the full presentations.
As I understand, this (and others) are still sub judice so they can’t open all of it, but the gist of it were shared online etc.


The concern I have with you, Andrew Alstom’s hammering on the election *process* that can’t be held exactly as per the bylaws, is apparently you were on the board, allowing the resources to be issued to CIL that is under dispute, and the CIL court cases (and the threats to the board members) happened as a consensus proposal would’ve been ratified to prevent resources, asked for by AfriNIC and assigned from ARIN/ICANN/etc., from leaving AfriNIC.

Thus, that *seems* to be the reason CIL is fighting this issue, as their livelihood is dependant on that massive amounts of resources that was issued under your board membership. Do you have any relationship with Lu Heng, NRS, Larus, CIL in that regard?

That is questions that raised their heads that also needs answering ;(


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Hendrik Visage

hvisage@hevis.co.za


HeViS.Co Systems Pty Ltd

https://www.envisage.co.za