[CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG

[Kieren McCarthy]

I have to agree with Padmini on this one re: DIDP and being "able to refer
the requestor to documents already publicly available".

The information provided is often tangential to what has actually been
asked for. In quite a few cases it is so far removed from the query that it
is almost obnoxious.

I don't know why Board members have such a blind spot about how the staff
behaves to those outside the corporation.

And I'm still waiting to hear a Board member - any Board member - announce
that they have decided to look into the staff's bylaw-breaking behavior in
the .africa application.

If I was on the Board and I heard that the entire process was
being jeopardized by staff wrongly interfering in the process (and then
lying about doing so), I'd make sure the community knew I was doing my job
and insist on some kind of internal review of what happened and what could
be done to make sure it didn't happen again.

But instead we get silence and fantasy responses like these ones from Bruce
about how the DIDP works and the effectiveness of ICANN's financial
reporting systems.


Kieren



On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:41 AM, Padmini <pdmnbaruah at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Bruce,
>
> As someone who has spent some time combing through the different responses
> that ICANN files to the various DIDP requests, my findings are slightly
> different, and have been posted earlier.
> While ICANN does link one to an innumerable array of documents that are
> publicly available, many times, there is little or no connection between
> the information one seeks and the publicly available documents that are
> provided. For instance, I have asked a few questions on registrar/registry
> audits, specifically seeking individual contracted party audit reports in
> cases where there have been breaches or discrepancies. However, the
> response contains a large number of links explaining ICANN's
> three-year-audit process in great detail, and at the end has a rejection of
> my actual request on the basis of certain of their extremely vast and broad
> grounds for non-disclosure. I like to refer to this as ICANN's tendency
> towards *documentary obfuscation *where they aren't actually giving you
> the information that you need, but are drowning you in documents anyway.
> That 66 is a figure that we might need to scrutinise closer in terms of
> how effective those disclosures actually have been.
>
> Warm Regards
> Padmini
> Programme Associate, Internet Governance
> Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India
>
> Padmini Baruah
> V Year, B.A.LL.B. (Hons.)
> NLSIU, Bangalore
>
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Bruce Tonkin <
> Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Hello Greg,
>>
>> >>  6333.  The accounting books and records and minutes of proceedings
>> of the members and the board and committees of the board shall be
>> open to inspection upon the written demand on the corporation of any
>> member at any reasonable time, for a purpose reasonably related to
>> such person's interests as a member.
>>
>> The minutes are basically published today.    The only minutes apparently
>> that are not posted are compensation committee minutes – but even then we
>> could at least note the items discussed without necessarily disclosing some
>> personal information.
>>
>> With regard to financials– we are already moving towards the same
>> standards as publicly listed companies in the USA.   We now provide
>> quarterly financial reporting, and a quarterly call where the community can
>> question the CEO and the CFO on the income and expenditure.   It would not
>> be normal to provide people with access to the raw accounting system (in
>> this case Great Plains) – which would include information on payments to
>> all staff etc.
>>
>> We do use an external auditor to validate our financials and processes
>> once per year.
>>
>> If there is a community  concern about a particular financial matter (e.g
>> concern about whether procurement policies were being followed) – then I
>> think it would be more appropriate if the single legal entity that
>> represents the community powers has the right to appoint an external
>> auditor to validate any particular process or numbers and report back to
>> the community.      Audit firms have the appropriate skills to analyse
>> financial accounting records and also have appropriate procedures in place
>> for confidentiality.
>>
>> I think we should be focussing on improving the processes we already
>> have.   I advocated moving to quarterly financial reporting, and I have
>> certainly been a strong advocate of making things as public as possible,
>> and welcome suggestions for improving our processes.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Bruce Tonkin
>>
>>
>>
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>
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