A RECENT news report focused on the exploitative practice of some International Gateway operators who are working as a cartel and not sharing the bulk of revenue with the government they are collecting from international call termination on Bangladesh end. This situation has developed, as many believe due to improperly initiated plans of the Telecom Ministry to patronize many local operators who were provided licenses on political considerations. The telecom regulator — Bangladesh Tele Regulatory Commission (BTRC) — is asking the government to quickly take the decision on incoming rates but the Telecom Ministry has been avoiding it by not reaching an effective decision on pressure of local vested interest groups on international incoming call termination rate with BTRC. Exploiting the vacuum some IGW operators are charging their own rates without giving the government its proper share in revenue, leading to losses of 55 lakh taka per day to the government, according to some estimates.
News reports show that the government reduced the international incoming call termination rate to 1.5 cents to make local firms competitive from 3 cents in September 2014 on a test basis to patronize politically licensed IGW operators. After several extensions of the test period the government is yet to issue an order about the formal transmission rate. The IGW Operators Forum, a cartel of IGW operators, is charging 2 cents per call now but is sharing revenue at 1.5 cents because of the government indecision.
Officials clarified that BTRC on several occasions requested the Ministry to set the upper limit to 2 cents but the Ministry did not respond, due to which average call volume declined to 9.3 crore minute per day from previous 10.5 crore minute giving rise to illegal call through local operators. This in turn allowed illegal calls to phenomenally increase as media reports showed bulk of equipment used to terminate illegal calls were found in the capital as operated by ruling party men.
This is a classic example of the Ministry avoiding performing responsibilities to protect party men interest and the government is losing over half crore taka in revenue every day. But it is also enabling the IGW operators cartel to continue their unfair practices. Dodging responsibilities by not reaching a proper decision about the international call termination rate is only showing the corrupt practice and ineptness of the government bodies and their negligence in conducting duties. It is completely unacceptable that IGW operators cartel will have free reign to conduct business as they would like using loopholes and indecision of the government.
In our view the authorities concerned should wake up immediately without wasting time to come to a decision on standard call termination rates ignoring the interest of party men running illegal call termination trade.
