AFRINIC co-founding engineer resigns – Source

After more than fifteen years on staff at the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC), Ernest Byaruhanga has resigned. This news comes via a source who spoke to MyBroadband on condition of anonymity.

AFRINIC is the youngest of five Regional Internet Registries in the world, which are responsible for the management of IP address space in their respective jurisdictions.

IP addresses are the unique numbers that computers need to be able to speak to one another over an Internet Protocol (IP) network, including the Internet. AFRINIC handles IP address assignments for the Africa region.

Byaruhanga was the second of AFRINIC’s two founding staff members who were hired in 2004. The first was Adiel Akplogan, who served as the first CEO of AFRINIC from 2004 to 2015. Akplogan was recently inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.

Byaruhanga’s first position was as an engineer and IP analyst for AFRINIC. His current position is policy coordinator.

While AFRINIC’s original founders included a steering committee, followed by a representative 12-member board (two from each sub-region) which was chaired by Nii Quaynor, Akplogan and Byaruhanga were tasked to build up AFRINIC’s infrastructure.

They did this from an office in the CSIR’s buildings in Pretoria until AFRINIC could be incorporated in Mauritius.

Byaruhanga’s departure follows a spate of high-profile resignations at AFRINIC. Alan Barrett resigned as CEO of the organisation in April, with his last day on 26 July.

Robert Ford Nkusi resigned from the AFRINIC board on 13 October after admitting that he had leaked the name of the person who would be appointed as the next AFRINIC CEO.

Most recently, AFRINIC announced that interim CEO Patrisse Deesse has resigned and is serving his notice period until 7 January 2020. Deesse was the AFRINIC director of finance and accounting and is serving as AFRINIC’s interim CEO.

AFRINIC said that Deesse will serve as interim CEO until the next CEO assumes duty. The new AFRINIC CEO is currently set to be announced on 31 October.

MyBroadband asked Deesse to comment on Byaruhanga’s resignation, but he declined to comment. He said that if Byaruhanga had resigned, it would be an internal matter and he wouldn’t be in a position to confirm or deny it.

When asked, Deesse explained that it took just over a week for AFRINIC to officially announce his own resignation.

Now read: The big South African IP address heist – How millions are made on the “grey” market