The Finance Ministry has rejected a BTRC proposal for lowering international call termination charges; a request that was reportedly based on false information about the volume of legal international incoming calls.
In a letter sent to the BTRC this week, the ministry recommended that Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) appoint a consultant to prepare a fresh proposal, saying: “The BTRC should conduct a comprehensive baseline study to analyse the impact on the industry and the risk to the stakeholders rather than suggesting piecemeal steps.”
Sources said the finance minister also sent a DO (demand order) letter to the Telecom Ministry and requested them to appoint a consultant and give the Finance Ministry a conclusive proposal about the different types of telecom license fees, charges and annual fees.
Earlier, the BTRC recommended the government to lower international call termination charges to 1.5 US cents ($0.015) per minute from the existing 3 US cents ($0.03) for the international gateway (IGW) operators. They also recommended reducing the government revenue sharing to 40% from the existing 51.75%.
Legal specialists, however, said the government cannot arbitrarily change the structure as the rate was fixed by an open auction.
In July last year, the BTRC sent its first round of recommendations that was rejected in March this year as it claimed that the cuts would cost the government around Tk1,073 crore. Later in May, the telecom watchdog sent another proposal – with changed numbers – to lower international call termination charges, but this time claiming that the change would allow the government to earn an additional Tk162 crore.
To make claims of potential profits, the BTRC allegedly manipulated the number of international incoming calls to show that 3.5 crore minutes of daily calls were being made on average. However, separate BTRC figures show that the daily call volume had not gone below four crore minutes over the past year, while it is currently around six crore minutes per day.
Sources said the false estimations were prepared reportedly to favour the cause of IGW operators who got licences with political backing.
In its previous proposal, the BTRC showed that the government would earn Tk777.99 crore every year if the rate was reduced to $0.015; however, in the latest proposal the estimated earning was changed to Tk2,012.72 crore.
In the second proposal, the telecom regulator also claimed that the existing daily 3.5 crore minutes of incoming international call volume would cross 9 crore minutes if the termination rate was halved from the existing $0.03 per minute.
Both the BTRC proposals claimed that the government was currently earning around Tk1,851 crore annually from this sector.
The BTRC’s recommendation also claimed that neighbouring countries’ call termination rates were much lower than Bangladesh, which sources said was also a lie.
According to the VoIP Service Providers Association (VSPA), international call termination rate in Sri Lanka is 9 US cents, 9.5 cents in Nepal, 8.8 cents in Pakistan and 25 cents in Maldives.