[governance] Financial reporting and transparency at APNIC

Geetha Hariharan geetha at cis-india.org
Wed Apr 30 14:52:25 EDT 2014


Dear all,

Please find below an account of a conversation over at the APNIC Talk
mailing list regarding financial and activity transparency and reporting.

1.	The conversation began with Dave Mead on Saturday (April 26, 2014)
addressing Paul Wilson on the APNIC Talk mailing list. Mead referred to
Wilson’s talk at the A-Pac Internet Leadership Programme, where Wilson
allegedly stated: “Members pay fees to APNIC to support the organisation
and the services and they don't give APNIC a blessing to spend that
money in unlimited fashion on Internet development” [1]. Mead alleged
that Wilson and other senior staff at APNIC utilize members’ fees/funds
for business class travel, and denounced this practice as not befitting
a not-for-profit Internet development organization.

2.	Hanif H. Mohammed of Pakistan supported Mead, and added that APNIC
was conducting a training programme on cyber-security, etc. for law
enforcement agencies (“LEAs”), utilizing APNIC funds. As LEAs allocate
funds of their own for training purposes, Mohammed stated that APNIC
should not be spending on their behalf.

3.	Skeeve Stevens intervenes and supports APNIC spending, by stating
that APNIC staff do very important work and need to be alert and awake
at meetings.

4.	Masato Yamanishi (APNIC Policy SIG co-chair) reframes the debate:
“The real question is whether there were enough outcomes compared to
resources spent including costs and man-months”. This gets more support
from members, and Dean Pemberton first makes a call for transparency and
reporting: “To that end I would support an increased level of financial
and activity reporting along the lines Yamanishi-san has suggested. We
do see this increased reporting in RIRs and other multistakeholder
organisations and they are to be commended for this. This will allow the
membership to determine if outputs such as those reported by APNIC at
ICANN49 are balanced with the expenditure required to produce them”.
Others support this.

5.	Tony Smith of APNIC responds by clarifying APNIC’s scope of
operations and defending the LEA Training [email attached].

6.	Skeeve Stevens takes a side-dig at B.C. Jain of India, who supported
reduced APNIC fees: “With the size of your population, the growth rate
of your industry, I really don't see why you have a problem with
finances. The NIR of India really should be making enough revenue to pay
for itself.”

7.	Skeeve Stevens seeks financial reporting from all NIRs within APNIC
[email attached].


There was also a side-conversation on the same thread regarding APNIC’s
effective representation of Asia and countries in the region:

1.	A short series of standoffs between Mohammed and Skeeve Stevens (who
voices support for APNIC, its activities and its staff) shows that there
is confusion in some minds as to whom the APNIC-EC represents. Mohammed
refers, for instance to APNIC offices located in Australia, and
questions whether it really represents Asian interests. There are
multiple responses to this: Rajesh Chharia asks why APNIC does not have
a regional office in South Asia, and invites “Paul and Akinori” to
respond. Aftab A. Siddiqui endorses this, referring to the newly opened
Dubai office of RIPE-NCC. Others contribute to this as well, noting that
Asia has no RIR.

2.	In response to all these, Skeeve Stevens provides a long
justificatory email, and accuses speakers of “sit[ting] far away, not
attend[ing] conferences, not be[ing] involved and criticis[ing] any
process and organization” [email attached]. Stevens emphasizes that
regional interests take priority and states that those with national
interests “will never be taken seriously”.

3.	Skeeve Stephens responds by inviting others to look at APNIC-EC [2]
and staff composition [3] and states that they effectively represent
Asian economies.

4.	Masato Yamanishi proposes that APNIC Secretariat should seek members’
approval and priority “about major activities with expected human
resources, CAPEX, and OPEX”. He refers to the ARIN and the RIPE-NCC
Activity Plan and Budget 2014 [4], where such discussion is held.

5.	Dave Mead again makes an intervention asking questions about APNIC’s
involvement and support in setting up NIRs.

___

[1] The audio may be found linked from the APNIC event wrap-up here:
http://www.apnic.net/publications/news/2014/icann-49-event-wrapup.
[2] APNIC-EC composition:
http://www.apnic.net/about-APNIC/organization/structure/apnic-executive-council/ec-members.
[3] APNIC staff composition: http://www.apnic.net/about-APNIC/team.
[4] RIPE-NCC Budget Plan: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-598.

I hope this is useful.

Best,
Geetha.

-- 
Geetha Hariharan
Programme Officer
Centre for Internet and Society
W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 8860 360717
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