Four private mobile phone operators have yet to decide about the submission of earnest money to confirm their participation in the 3G auction.
Senior officials of Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Airtel made the disclosure after a meeting with BTRC Chairman Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose on Sunday.
Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, chief financial officer of Robi, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had given a condition to BTRC to resolve the SIM replacement tax issue by August 26. Later, August 29 was fixed for resolving the SIM replacement tax issue.
Earlier, investigations had found that mobile operators sold old SIMs, mostly inactive for a long period, to new clients but did not pay taxes saying they had only replaced those SIMs to the original clients. Mobile companies, however, had denied the allegation.
The Large Taxpayers’ Unit (LTU) of the National Board of Revenue claimed the owed SIM replacement tax was Tk7.74bn from Banglalink, Tk6.64bn from Robi, Tk15.8bn from Grameenphone and Tk850m from Airtel.
“As the issue is not resolved yet, we are still undecided about submitting the earnest money,” said Mahtab Uddin.
He said if necessary BTRC could defer the deadline.
Meanwhile, Citycell sources said they were fully prepared to deposit earnest money on August 26.
Grameenphone CEO Vivek Sood, Banglalink CEO Ziad Shatara, Robi Chief Financial Officer Mahtab Uddin Ahmed and Airtel CEO Chris Tobit attended the meeting with the BTRC Chairman.
