The telecom regulator yesterday denied the government auditor’s findings that the BTRC of all government agencies has the highest level of financial irregularities, saying the interpretation does not reflect the real picture.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, however, agreed that there could be irregularities in Airtel share transfer – as detected by the comptroller and auditor general’s (CAG) office – but it said the incident could be further audited by a third party.
At a press conference at his office yesterday, BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose said the then commission had made decisions according to the audit report of Warid Telecom.
“Based on the CAG’s findings, if the government thinks a third party audit can resolve the issue, we welcome that, but we cannot do it ourselves,” he said.
The CAG audit report released on Monday said the government had lost around Tk76.96 crore in Warid’s 70% share transfer to Airtel in 2010 as the then BTRC had imposed lower fees violating an act. The audit report is to be placed in parliament soon.
The CAG office conducted the special audit on the BTRC from 2001-02 to 2009-10 fiscal years that revealed that the government had lost Tk2,628 crore in revenues because of several financial irregularities.
According to the report, during the transfer of 70% stake in January 2010, Warid manipulated its share price to evade the transfer fee, as the Tk100 face value of each share was shown at Tk0.06 just before the transfer. At that time, Warid transferred 114,474,640 shares to Airtel worth Tk68.68 lakh without the permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On February 25 that year, however, Warid increased the number of shares from 200 million to 470 million and transferred additional 259,828,057 shares to Airtel at a rate of Tk79.82.
“In a month’s gap, the share price rose to Tk79.82 from Tk0.06, which makes it clear that the devaluation of share price had been intended to evade government tax,” the CAG audit report said.
On January 4, 2010, the BTRC had permitted Warid to sell 70% of its stakes for only $100,000 (around Tk70 lakh). It withdrew the 5.5% revenue-sharing decision on February 8 that year.
But after three years Warid transferred the remaining 30% shares for $85 million, which is 2,000 times higher than the previous transfer value, according to the document available with the Dhaka Tribune.
After the CAG’s press conference, which also covered other issues of the BTRC, the commission chairman said: “The CAG might have his own reasons, but the way it is mentioned that the BTRC has the highest financial irregularities could give a misleading picture.”
The CAG had said the BTRC topped in terms of financial irregularities among 17 government agencies audited.
“The CAG had offered on several occasions to run an audit by a third party but we did not go for one as there was no official order,” Sunil Kanti Bose told the press conference yesterday.
Replying to a question, he said: “There is no way you can say the share transfer [from Warid to Airtel] was illegal. According to documents, everything was okay and the then BTRC made decisions based on those papers.”
He said there might be some information gap between the CAG and the BTRC. “The BTRC cannot directly communicate with the CAG office. It has to go through the telecom ministry,” he said.
Asked if he thinks the audit report is incorrect, Sunil said: “The BTRC is not perfect and we do have our limitations. But the audit findings we are talking about can be resolved in the Public Accounts Committee of parliament. So, before that it would not be fair to say we are at the top in irregularities.”
The CAG report said the BTRC had not fined illegal businesses of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) on different occasions and failed to collect spectrum charges, licence fees, share transaction fees violating its own rules.
