- The receiver’s election process now faces contempt-of-court allegations
- A contested board has already approved policies affecting resource holders
The fact
The Supreme Court of Mauritius placed AFRINIC under receivership in September 2023 to stabilise Africa’s regional internet registry, oversee board elections and restore normal governance. Official receiver Gowtamsingh Dabee later took charge of the board-election process, with voting announced for 23 June 2025. That process was hit by complaints, allegations of outside intervention and disputes over the voting mechanism. Dabee then annulled the election, set a new timetable and reran the process. The resulting process drew a court motion alleging nine procedural violations, including non-compliant guidelines, a disputed nomination committee, voting restrictions, candidate-list irregularities and contested voter eligibility. Under the same receivership, Cloud Innovation’s court-directed membership correction was delayed for months, listed on 13 May 2026, and then quietly removed nine days later.
The Assessment
The legal problem is that AfriNIC’s court-appointed repair mechanism now appears to be producing fresh governance defects. Dabee was meant to manage process, not remake the rules of institutional control. By annulling and rerunning the election, shaping the guidelines, overseeing the nomination and voting framework, and presiding over a membership-register reversal, the receiver became more than a neutral administrator. The criticism is sharper because the contested board has already ratified substantive policies, including address-transfer and abuse-handling decisions affecting resource holders across Africa.
That exposes AfriNIC to a structural challenge: if the board’s authority is under judicial attack, the policies it approved may carry the same legitimacy problem.
What to Watch
The 7 July 2026 contempt hearing is the next legal test. Watch whether the court finds Dabee’s election conduct non-compliant, whether the contested board’s policy decisions are challenged, and whether the Cloud Innovation membership reversal becomes part of a wider case that receivership has failed to restore lawful governance.
