After the telecom regulator, the parliamentary standing committee on post and telecommunication has also expressed support for the reduction of rates for incoming international phone calls that would reduce government’s annual revenue by at least Tk10.73bn.
However, the telecom minister and the secretary reportedly took a stance against it in a meeting held on Tuesday in the parliament secretariat.
Though it was not on the agenda for on Tuesday’s meeting, the Chairman of the committee Md Abdus Sattar raised the issue and recommended to reduce the call termination rate as early as possible, according to sources at the meeting.
Minister Sahara Khatun and secretary Md Abubakar Siddique voiced their disagreements.
Politically powerful gateway (IGW) operators have been pushing for the cuts, and other benefits from the government. Last month two ministers and four others, all of them IGW owners, met Sahara Khatun in what was apparently an effort to push home these demands.
In the last week of July, Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission sent a recommendation to the telecom ministry for lowering the international incoming call charge by 50% ($.015 from $.03) and the revenue sharing by IGWs by 22.71%.
According to the BTRC recommendation, 35m minutes of international calls were coming in every day and government would lose at least Tk10.731bn every year if the rates were reduced.
But according to various sources, loses might amount to as much as Tk15bn since the actual amount of calls was much more than what BTRC was reporting.
A source at the meeting said, “Sahara Khatun said the ministry had discussed the matter with the stakeholders and most of the IGWs disagreed with BTRC’s recommendations.”
The source also said the BTRC chairman was “trying to pressurise the committee” on the issue.
He told the meeting only the telecom ministry had the authority to reduce the rates and the cabinet or the finance ministry had no power in the matter, the source said.
According to the source the he also claimed that newspapers had published false reports regarding the issue.
BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose was unavailable for comments.
Telecom Secretary Md Abubakar Siddique disagreed with BTRC Chairman and said if the ministry approved the BTRC recommendation it would mean a Tk11bn loss for the government.
“And as this is near the end of the government’s tenure, we need to think again,” he said, according to the source.
Another member of the standing committee Md Nazrul Islam Babu was in favour of seeking expert opinions on the issue.
“We are trying to set up a regulation for IGWs and at the same time ensure the government portion,” Sahara Khatun told the Dhaka Tribune after the meeting.
At present $0.03 comes in to the country with every minute of international incoming call and it is shared among IGWs, ICX, local operators (ANS) and the government. BTRC has recommended reducing the termination rate to $.015. It has also proposed to change the revenue sharing structure to reduce the government share.
Currently BTRC or the government gets 51.75% of the revenue. ICX gets 15%, ANS operators get 20% and the IGWs can take 13.25%.
BTRC recommended a government share of 40%, ICX 17.50%, ANS operators 22.50% and 20% for IGWs.
