The government plans to bring Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL), state-owned telecommunication operator, under Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative.
As the BTCL remains as a losing concern, it might be a profitable one only if any other private company comes forward to lead this organisation from the front under a PPP format.
Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui came up with the plan while sharing views at a dialogue held in Dhaka on Sunday. The Asia Foundation and Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) jointly organised the dialogue.
“You people are welcome to take the lead of the BTCL as we are ready to put it under PPP. I have a plan to do so and the authorities also want to make it a holding company, but no one has so far showed interest to be a part of it,” said Abdul Latif Siddique.
The minister said: “As the BTCL could not make profit over the years, no body shows any interest to get involved with it.”
During the last couple of years, as the BTCL has become a losing concern, the monthly salaries of the existing employees are being paid from its fixed deposit account, said a source in the BTCL.
It incurred a loss worth Tk546 crore in the last fiscal year (2012-13) – worst in the company’s history – as earnings from international calls dropped sharply.
In response to a question, the ministers told the Dhaka Tribune: “Whatever I have told the public meeting, it is true and I really meant for it. There has been no other meaning of my statement.”
He added: “It is my plan and I am really thinking on how to implement it as there has been no other alternative for sustaining the BTCL.”
In the last 15 years, the state-owned company faced another setback for the second time in the year 2007-08 when it had incurred a loss worth Tk190 crore.
In the year 2012-13, BTCL, however, had earned Tk1,056 crore and spent Tk1,602 crore while the income was falling down by around 58% with the revenue target of Tk2,498 crore.
A senior executive of the operator said the BTCL had been facing the setback due to massive privatisation of most of the international call termination services.
BTCL had earned only over Tk401 crore from the foreign market, which is only little over 37% of previous year’s earnings of Tk1,070 crore. In 2008-09, the company had earned about Tk1,238 crore, which is the highest from international call termination.
The income of BTCL from local market increased marginally to Tk654 crore in 2012-13 from Tk632 crore in 2011-12.
BTCL emerged as a state-owned company in July 2008 under the caretaker government, when the then BTTB (Bangladesh Telephone and Telegraph Board) divided into two different companies BTCL and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company LTD (BSCCL).