The Jatiya Sangsad panel on telecommunications ministry on Wednesday snubbed the state-owned telephone company which was turned into a public limited entity in 2008 for its poor performance.
The parliamentary standing committee on post and telecommunication at its meeting said Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited, commonly known as BTCL, had failed to meet its target of giving one crore new connections by 2013.
‘The company could give only 1 lakh 71 thousand new connections till date from 2009. This is simply frustrating. We have expressed our dissatisfaction for their inefficiency and poor performance,’ said Hasanul Haq Inu, the committee chairman, after the meeting.
He said some officials of BTCL were allegedly involved in illegal voice over internet protocol (VoIP) business.
‘The company’s revenue collection is not satisfactory. It has not been performing as per our expectation,’ said Inu, adding that the standing committee had recommended improving the performance of the company.
The chairman of the committee said the company had performed very bad in realising the dues from the foreign carriers. Up to June 30, he said, 58 foreign carriers owed over Tk 794 crore to the company.
He said some BTCL officials were dilly-dallying in realising the outstanding fees.
Inu said the committee had also recommended that the government should immediately take the measures to settle the on-going impasse over renewal of the licenses of four mobile phone companies in 15 days.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and the four companies–GrameenPhone, Banglalink, Robi and CityCell– have been in loggerheads over the amount of fees for licence renewal.
The companies went to court against the BTRC set fees terming those as ‘very high’.