KENIC boardroom wars must not spill into public

Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC) is a multi-stakeholder organisation mandated to oversee the management of the country’s internet domain name space – the ''dot.KE'' name space.

In other words, if you needed to register any internet name ending with the suffix ''dot.KE,'' you would need to do so through the KENIC framework that includes the registrars who facilitate name registrations for the registrants.

KENIC hosts the registry, where all the ''dot.KE'' internet names are registered by competing registrars. These registrars, under the Domain Registrar Association of Kenya (DRAKE), have a seat at the KENIC board.

KENIC is therefore very critical, but often silent component, in the overall health and growth of our digital economy.

LEAKED LETTER

It was quite surprising when a letter from DRAKE was leaked on the KICTAnet forum, showing that there were some contested boardroom resolutions that had led to some leadership changes at the top.

From the leaked letters, it appeared DRAKE was complaining to the Communications Authority (CA) that the KENIC board affairs are not being run above board, but more specifically, that the position of chairman has never gone to them.

I could not trace the current constitution of KENIC to ascertain how the current chairman of the KENIC board is appointed but previously, KENIC has served as the best reference point for multi-stakeholder governance systems.

GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

The original governance structure involved stakeholders and nominees from the regulator, industry, academia, civil society amongst others sitting on the board and selecting their chairman.

Stakeholders would meet annually during their AGM to deal with the usual business of approving the chairman’s and treasurer’s report, appointing auditors and directors amongst other items.

However, in 2013 there were some amendments on the Kenya Information and Communication Act that put KENIC under the purview CA.

NEW MANAGEMENT APPROACH

As a fairly old guard in the Kenyan internet space, I used to get invites to attend the KENIC AGM, but since 2013 such invites became rare and eventually disappeared altogether.

Perhaps, the changes in the Act imposed a slightly different mode of operation for this important institution.

Maybe the KENIC directors’ time is now more inclined towards reporting to the regulator, rather than to the general stakeholders or internet users as was previously the case.

With over 75,000 internet domain names registered since its formal inception fifteen years ago, KENIC has indeed come a long way. In fact, it was considered the second best internet name registry in Africa – just behind South Africa’s – by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 2017 Domain Name Study.

So it is difficult to reconcile such success and global recognition with the current board room squabbles as depicted by DRAKE.

DEAFENING SILENCE

It would be useful for the KENIC board to issue a public statement or response to at least shed some light on the merits or demerits of the DRAKE accusations.

Continued silence may work only if the accusations were coming from the outside or non-board members.

It is however detrimental to the organization when the accusations come from an insider and there is no alternative position from the board.

Silence maybe construed to mean consent or agreement to the allegations.

All internet users in Kenya are by design interested parties in the governance and operations of the Kenyan internet name registry.

They therefore deserve a response, and subsequently a mechanism for regular updates on the progress or otherwise of this important institutions.

Let us hope the Chairman of KENIC will in due cause address the stakeholders and reassure them that all is well at the organisation.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Email: [email protected], Twitter: @Jwalu