State-owned telecom company BTCL’s earnings in arrears from international call termination has stacked up to a staggeringTk11.73bn, with an increase of almost 80.14% in the last 13 months.
At the end of February 2012, the total outstanding amount to international carriers was Tk6.51bn, which increased to Tk7.94bn in June last year and peaked at Tk11.73bn after the first quarter of this year.
“I want to assure you that despite many problems, we are working on it seriously and we can collect most of the money,” BTCL Managing Director OSM Kamim Ullah told the Dhaka Tribune recently. He hoped that the current figure will not go up. “BTCL is a state owned international gateway (IGW), and we have some responsibilities to secure the government’s income.”
IGW’s are the legal channels for incoming international call termination and for every minute of call, BTCL is supposed to earn $0.03 from its international carriers.
However, the state-owned operator never took any effective measures to collect the money from its international carriers, though high-ups from the company and the telecom ministry travelled to Europe and the US in the name of collecting the dues, said officials.
Moreover, BTCL had repeatedly promised the parliamentary standing committee on telecommunication that it would collect the dues. On a few occasions, it had given assurance that the outstanding figure would not increase any further.
At three different meetings with the parliamentary watchdog, BTCL showed three different figures. In reply to a query from the committee, it proposed the appointment of lobbyists to recover the money from the carriers.
BTCL officials alleged: “Some highly placed officials at BTCL create the opportunities for the carriers to keep their dues outstanding. They also inked deals with some of the international carrier’s local agents, who produced fake documents, which helped them discontinue the business with a huge amount in outstanding fees.”
At another meeting with the parliamentary standing committee, BTCL stated that they have already disconnected 26 international carriers’ circuits in their drive to collect the outstanding amount. At the same time, 22 carriers had filed writs with the court, leaving BTCL unable to take any stern actions.
At a Meeting on May 26 this year, BTCL informed that eight more carriers had taken them to court. So, BTCL could not do anything about the overdue payments from DigiTech (Singapore), Simple Telecom (UK), NTS Global (Singapore), Money Enterprise (UK), RA Telecom (Singapore), Jamir Telecom and Jenosis.
However, sources claimed that BTCL officials were the advisors of these carriers and showed them the way to delay or totally avoid making payments.
When contacted, parliamentary standing committee on Telecommunication Chairman Md Abdus Sattar said: “We need to go tough on this issue. Tk12bn is not a matter of joke!”
He added: “This is all public money. BTCL officials will have to answer these questions.”
