Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said he had urged for rescheduling steps leading to the auction of the 3G mobile spectrum without changing the date of the actual bidding as some operators have given some pre-conditions for their participation.
“Even though Telenor group, the parent company of leading Grameenphone requested us to delay the 3G auction again, we cannot accept it,” finance minister told reporters following a meeting in his office with officials of telecom ministry, National Board of Revenue, Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission and the attorney general.
“Grameenphone told us that they will not participate 3G auction before finalisation of Grameen Bank Commission report. I tell you they cannot say this. The commission is autonomous, we cannot tell them anything about it.
We would not change the schedule for this cause but the BTRC needs to do so for some other reasons.”
The auction date has already been changed three times and now stands on September 2. The last date for applying was July 10, a deadline, sources say, would surely change.
As a result, the date for the publication of a list of eligible firms is likely to shift from July 18 and the August 4 deadline for submitting the $20m earnest money would also be extended.
A source in the BTRC said, the new schedule could be announced on Sunday before its chief, Sunil Kanti Bose, leaves for a week-long Poland trip.
Muhith also approved a long-standing demand of operators to be given the chance to replace SIM cards without any taxation.
A case between the board of revenue and operators is already pending on the issue in which the tax evaluators claimed they should get Tk15.8bn from Grameenphone, Tk7.74bn from Banglalink and Tk6.64bn from Robi. Sources said the BTRC chief and the NBR chief have been assigned to work together to resolve this issue.
Another issue that was addressed in the meet was the demand of mobile operators to be allowed to show SIM tax as an expenditure, something the NBR always opposed.
Industry sources say the matter was resolved in the meeting and now operators can show their subsidy on SIM cards as an expenditure allowing them to reduce their tax on profit.
Meanwhile, the finance minister requested the attorney general to mitigate the case filed by four operators against the NBR over renewal of 2G spectrum licences.
A high official who attended the meet told the Dhaka Tribune on condition of anonymity: “The assigned officials will sit again next week to follow up on the progress and gear up the process for the 3G auction.”
According to the guidelines, the regulator will award three licenses to the bid winners from among five existing operators and a new one.
Earlier, Grameenphone board chairman Sigve Brekke met with finance minister several times about the matter. At the same time Norwegian Trade and Industry minister Trond Giske and Telenor group CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and some other ministers about the issue.