Big shots of the ruling party and other political parties are engaged with the business of illegal international call termination, Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Feroz Rashid yesterday claimed in parliament.
In a notice, Feroz Rashid said thousands of crores of taka are being plundered by misusing licences of VoIP.
“From newspaper reports we came to know that incoming international calls constitute 14 crore minutes every day but the government has recorded only 4 crore minutes, which causes Tk13 crore losses a day. The losses stand at Tk5,000 crore a year,” he said.
“What initiative has the government taken to save this huge amount of money?”
In reply, Obaidul Quader, the communications minister who is on parliamentary duty for the Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Ministry, said the government had taken a massive initiative to bring illegal calls through a white channel. As a result, daily legal calls have increased up to 10 crore minutes.
He said the government had conducted massive operations against illegal call termination and at the same time slashed the termination rate ¢1.5 from ¢3 every minute.
“Illegal call termination has now come to an end and the government’s revenue is secure,” he added.
