More than 90 nominations for the nine-member board of directors to oversee South Africa`s .za domain name authority had been received by the closing date of 30 April - and a number of postal nominations are still awaited, says a communications ministry spokesman.
A selection panel of five people will review the submissions and present a list of possible nominees to communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. The selection panel is expected to meet within two weeks to draft the shortlist.
The five people serving on the selection panel - who are not eligible for nomination themselves - include Mike Lawrie, who was initially responsible for administering the .za domain; and lawyer Ryk Meiring, who has served on the board of the local Internet Society (ISOC-ZA), which was an active member of Namespace, the body originally formed by Lawrie and ISOC-ZA to take over the .za domain administration.
Also on the panel are Zodwa Manase, acting chairman of the State IT Agency; Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, CEO of state-owned signal distributor Sentech; and Sello Matsabu, executive director of the IT arm of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Business Report states that the selection panel is expected to take a lot of time to review the list, but this is purely because the number of responses has been so overwhelming, and the ministry spokesman says they are confident the panel will finish this task quickly and efficiently.
The domain name authority was authorised by the promulgation of the Electronic Communications and Transaction Act, which caused controversy as industry players accused the government of seeking to control and regulate domain naming, in contrast to international norms.
What looked set to be a drawn out battle between the industry and government was averted by the decision to select the nine-member board of directors from a number of different areas, including the existing domain name community, labour, business and academia.
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