VoIP licence holders have recently written to the prime minister requesting that the telecom regulatory body be shut down for its corrupt activities.
Khudra Telecom Babshaye Samity (KTBS), an association of VoIP Service Providers (VSP), wrote to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last week claiming that the telecom sector was fraught with indiscipline.
KTBS Secretary General Masumur Rahaman confirmed about the letter, saying: “We will arrange a press conference about it next week to clarify our position.
“Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is an out-and-out corrupt organisation where some senior officers have grabbed more than a thousand crore taka by giving illegal facilities to some licensees,” said Masumur, also an owner of a VSP service.
The letter by KTBS reads: “BTRC is moving forward with a plan to form a cartel of international gateway (IGW) operators – a move that would allow a handful of companies to form a two-tier clearing exchange for gaining control over the pricing of international incoming call termination.”
Through this process, a syndicate could earn more than a thousand crore taka within a short time, it also said.
The letter claimed that under this process, the regulator managed to cut international incoming call rate to 1.5 US cent per minute from 3 US cents, even though incoming international call rates in different countries varied between 6 US cents to 11 US cents. The move had already cost government losses close to Tk500 crore.
The KTBS letter also mentioned four IGWs have already gone out of the scene after grabbing Tk380 crore. According to KTBS claims, some BTRC officials were also involved with these companies – helping the IGWs drain money from the government.
The KTBS also sent copies of the letter to the Ministries of Finance, Law, Public Administration, Post and Telecommunication and ICT.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
