Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has asked Grameenphone (GP) to pay BDT 30.34 billion of its dues with 15 per cent compound interest by October 24 or face the music while the GP has contradicted the claims of the regulator.
BTRC Chairman Zia Ahmed told reporters on Tuesday that the big operator did not pay the said amount of money to the government exchequer hiding its real information including the number of subscribers.
Of the total amount GP has to pay BDT 21.465 billion as the fees to the BTRC and rest BDT 8.875 billion to the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
He said the regulator has identified the anomalies after auditing the operator’s financial report and relevant documents since its inception until March 31, 2011.
“We asked the operator by issuing a letter to come to the BTRC if it has any objection in this matter,” the BTRC chief said.
Mr Ahmed mentioned that the operator concealed information relating to the number of more than 10 million subscribers. “Its officials couldn’t provide various data but have manipulated a lot to the audit firm.”
The number of subscribers of Grammenphone is 34.979 million, according to the data it provided to the BTRC. But the number of actual subscribers of Grammenphone is over 44.979 million, the Financial Express (FE), a local newspaper, reported quoting the audit report.
“We’ve enough documents to prove the revenue dodge. So, there is no scope of raising question about the procedure the BTRC has followed,” Mr. Ahmed added.
On behalf of the BTRC, the audit team of chartered account firm ‘Fazal & Co’ checked and examined the GP’s log books, reports, data, records, agreements between GP and other financial institutions, bills and other relevant documents.
Meanwhile Grameenphone claimed that the audit of the telecom regulator was not of international standard and its report was not made in accordance with the rules.
The operator made the claim at a press conference held in the capital on Tuesday.
The GP organized the press conference to clarify the matter in response to BTRC’s audit report.
Chief Communication Officer of the operator Kazi Monirul Kabir said the audit firm made the report on the basis of wrong ideas.
This situation will have a bad impact on foreign investment in the company and it may even create panic among the shareholders, he added.
Zaki Omar, head of legal affairs and compliance of GP, raised different mismatches of the report at the press conference.
He said the report wrongly included six sectors for earning revenue by BTRC though it earns revenue only from call charge, according to the newspaper report.
BBN/SSR/AD-05Oct11-11:28 am (BST)
