DHAKA – The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Sunday approved four cases against 22 people incumbent managing director SOM Kalim Ullah and three former managing directors of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL over their alleged involvement with illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business.
ACC commissioner M Shahabuddin told reporters that the approval was given from a meeting of the commission on Sunday.
According to ACC officials the commission revealed that the people were embezzlement of about Tk 575.33 crore through illegal VoIP business in the last four years.
ACC deputy director SM Sahidur Rahman will file the cases with Ramna police any day this week, they said.
The 22 accused are BTCL managing director SOM Kalim Ullah, former directors SM Khairuzzaman, Afsar-ul-Alam and Md Abu Sayed Khan, former member Mohammad Tawfiq, general manager Anowerul Azim, former divisional engineers Romel Chakma and Habibur Rahman Pramanik and Ericsson Bangladesh Ltd’s officials Asif Jahid, Nazrul Islam and Masrurul Hakim.
The ACC sources said the BTCL officials in connivance with a multinational company Ericsson Bangladesh Ltd embezzled the money by erasing incoming international call minutes from call detail record of ITX-5 and ITX-7 at Mohakhali in the capital.
According to the report, the number of international incoming calls per day has now declined by 15 million from nearly 45 million recorded in early 2010. The decline is reportedly causing a daily revenue loss to the tune of Tk 100 million.
The report said the worst thing is some foreign carriers now owe more than Tk 10 billion to the BTCL on account of incoming foreign calls.
Some foreign carriers allegedly submitted forged letters of guarantee from local banks while taking permission from the government. No one in the BTCL cared to check the authenticity of the letters of bank guarantee.
The report further said international gateways and interconnection exchanges of the BTCL are on the same platform and connected to other telecom operators, which could allow calls to bypass proper channels.
According to an ACC inquiry report, more than Tk 12,000 crore was misappropriated through illegal VoIP business and smuggled out of the country in the last three years. – Staff Reporter
