AFRINIC AFRINIC restricts attendance to the Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM) even ONLINE 😐

The Africa Internet Summit 2022 is being held on 30th May – 3rd June at Le Méridien Hotel, Pte aux Piments in Mauritius. The AFRINIC Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM) is scheduled on the last day of the Africa Internet Summit, i.e Friday 3rd June 2022.

Many AFRINIC Resource Members look forward to this meeting and they travel every year to attend the meeting in person. Others who cannot make it can still participate and ask questions via the online conference system.

I have been attending AFRINIC Meetings since 2017. I have attended a few meetings online and two of the meetings in-person. I have attended the meetings as a Resource Member since 2019. I have never seen AFRINIC restricting Resource Members from attending the AGMM in the past.

Today, in a email the AFRINIC Legal Team informed members that due to the prevailing sanitary protocol in Mauritius, only one representative of a Resource Member will be allowed to attend the meeting in-person. However, to the astonishment and incomprehension of several members, the legal team also stated that only one representative per Resource Member will be allowed to join the meeting via the online conference system.

Several members have raised questions over this statement. I questioned the legal team about it and in response the AFRINIC Communications team stated that —

Article 12.14(9) provides, inter-alia as follows - "Corporations may act by representative. A corporate body, which is a Member, may appoint a representative to attend an Annual General Members’ Meeting on its behalf in the same manner as that in which it could appoint a proxy.”.

The AFRINIC Bylaws, from which the above article is quoted, does not state that a corporate body, which is a Member, can be represented by one person only.