The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) will conduct an information system audit or complete inspection in Banglalink to scrutinise all types of relevant records of the company.
The audit will assess legal, financial and technical compliance of the mobile operator with provisions of the Telecommunication Act 2001 and its amendments, licensing obligations, and the rules, regulations, directives, orders, and decisions etc of the government and the commission since its inception in November 1996 until December 2019.
The BTRC has published a circular on Monday, seeking expression of interest (EoI) for appointing an auditor.
For being appointed as auditor, a local audit firm will have to form a joint venture or consortium with an international firm to enhance technical capacity for the audit, as per the terms of reference, mentioned in the circular.
Banglalink is a fully-owned company by Telecom Ventures Limited of Malta. The operator's ownership went through multiple share transfers since its inception. Its subscriber base is approximately 35.049 million as of October 2019, according to the regulator.
The BTRC has obligation to conduct information system audit of all the mobile operators. Four years ago the commission formally decided to appoint auditors for Banglalink and Airtel along with now-defunct Citycell.
With the latest call for appointment of auditor, the BTRC also scrapped its previous bidding process.
In December 2017, the commission published a circular, seeking EoI from firms to conduct financial and technical audits in Banglalink and Airtel, which was merged with Robi in November 2016.
Subsequently, one firm submitted EoI to audit Banglalink and four submitted EoIs to audit Airtel.
But, the total process hit snag, as the committee, formed for auditor selection and appointment, failed to follow due procedure for conducting audit.
Earlier, in September 2015, the BTRC decided to audit all the five private sector mobile phone operators.
In October of the same year, it appointed audit firm Toha Khan Zaman & Co to conduct information system audit in Grameenphone (GP).
In March 2016, Masih Muhith Haque & Co was appointed for auditing Robi Axiata.
Based on two separate audits, the telecom regulator claimed Tk 125.79 billion from GP, and Tk 8.67 billion from Robi Axiata. The mobile phone operators, however, are yet to clear the dues.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court instructed GP on November 24 to pay Tk 20 billion out of the BTRC's claimed money within three months.
