Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) came under heavy criticism in Dhaka yesterday for their negligence in realising outstanding bills from different service operators, especially few international gateway operators.
The operators earned a huge amount of money and allegedly went out of operation without paying the government at least Tk2,611 crore remained due against spectrum charges, revenue sharing and annual licence fees.
Newly appointed Post and Telecommunication Minister Rashed Khan Menon lambasted the regulator at a meeting with the officials, forewarning them to collect the money for the national exchequer.
In October, BTRC sent a statement to the post and telecommunication ministry apprising of the outstanding bills, which sources believe would cross Tk3,000 crore by now.
“You need to be tough to collect the thousands of crores of taka remained outstanding,” Menon told the officials of the regulator, expressing his dissatisfaction.
“I will give you all the support even if there is any pressure from any corner of the government.”
Menon learned about the outstanding bills from newspaper reports that some of the IGW’s doesn’t share their revenues in accordance with the guideline.
He requested the regulator to suspend some of the IGW’s licences, which would be an example for other operators.
According to the guideline, IGW’s earn $.03 for every minute of incoming international calls and they have to share 51.75% of it with the regulator.
In response to the minister’s warning, BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose said they would show zero tolerance in collecting the revenue from the IGW’s and, at the same time, they would take some legal actions.
BTRC could not collect Tk613 crore from only six IGW operators, most of them are politically powerful and the total outstanding amount of IGW’s revenue sharing stood at Tk1,115 crore so far, sources say.
An amount of Tk146.5 crore remained unpaid in the name of Vision Tel Ltd, previously owned by a former minister’s daughter. Ratul Telecom Limited, an IGW of Ex-LGRD State Minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak’s wife and daughter owes Tk96.5 crore.
Kay Telecommunications Limited a company of ruling party leader Shamim Osman from Narayanganj only paid Tk9 crore and their outstanding remains at Tk91.5 crore.
Telex Limited’s outstanding Tk92.5cr while two other IGWs Bestec Telecom Limited and Apple GlobalTel Com Ltd’s outstanding respectively Tk127.5 crore and Tk58.5 crore.
At the meeting, Telecom Secretary Md Abubakar Siddique questioned about BTRC’s monitoring system. “Now the illegal termination system spread out to district and upzila headquarters. You people must think about it.”
The minister warned BTRC to take necessary action and said: “You are claiming the scenario is developing, but whenever I got any call from abroad I find it from local numbers.”
He said: “I found this sector is already going to be unstable. We need to take care the people who are the real businessmen putting their money and labor into it.”
He asked for monitoring the blogs, protect open sources SMS and regulate the proper bandwidth uses.
The BTRC chairman said abusing blogs, SMS and facebook is a current phenomenon and they are aware of it. “We’re taking up projects and you will see the results within a week,” he assured the minister.
