Bad omens for BTTB

FE Team | Published: September 12, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Shamsul Huq Zahid
There were, at least, three separate news reports published in the national dailies for the last couple of days that involved, on way or the other, the interests of the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB).
The first report published last Monday was about the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) granting permission to four private telecom companies for providing fixed phone services in Dhaka region, the major source of revenue earning by the BTTB.
The decision might in the long run prove a financial disaster for the state-owned telecom entity that has been enjoying monopoly in PSTN (public switched telephone network) operations in Dhaka city.
A couple of reports were published Tuesday last; one related to the finance adviser's disclosure that the government was ready to offload BTTB shares to the general investors next year. But he stated that before such offloading, the process of corporatisation of the BTTB needed to be completed.
The content of the other report-an exclusive one by a Bengali daily-was about corruption by a section of revenue officials of the Board.
The report on corruption in BTTB is unlikely to stir any particular interest among the readers as they are already well aware of its goings-on. But the novel way of misappropriating the BTTB funds by a section of its revenue officials is bound to attract readers' attention.
According to the report, a total 515 officials and employees working in Revenue-02 department of the BTTB on paper were not physically present in their respective places of work throughout the financial year 2005-06. They were busy otherwise on official duty, even on Fridays and public holidays. Naturally, their superior sense of duty and sincerity did not go unrewarded. They misappropriated the BTTB fund worth Tk.210 million through fake vouchers. The engineering section of the BTTB, allegedly, spent Tk 140 million in excess of the regular allocation for the year 2005-06 through false vouchers. A team of investigators from the CID, according to the news report, recovered 35 sacks of false vouchers!
The users of fixed telephone lines who have been hostage to the whims of the BTTB officials and employees, including the linemen, in Dhaka city, however, much have been delighted by one particular report. It was about the entry of four private telecom operators in Dhaka telecom region.
The days of long wait for getting BTTB connections, inflated or ghost billing, misbehaviour of BTTB employees with the subscribers seeking redress for technical problems etc., will be over as soon as the private PSTN operators make their entry in to the Dhaka zone.
It would take a couple of hours or even less to get a new telephone connection from any of the private operators. The subscribers to private PSTN operations would not have to worry about inflated or ghost telephone bills at the end of the month since the pre-paid cards will be in use to make phone calls. Nor they would be required to report to BTTB telephone camp offices, manned by indifferent officials and employees, to get their dead telephone connections alive or replace on their own copper wire stolen, mainly by 'hiranchis' (heroin addicts), for private operators would employ wireless CDMA technology.
The added attraction of the private telecom services will be their internet services.
General investors as well as bourses are found to be euphoric about the offloading of the BTTB shares. But by the time the public sector telecom giant hits the market-possibly sometime next year-much of its market share is likely to be lost to private PSTN operators.
Besides, the corporatisation move that is now on for the BTTB is unlikely to produce the desired results, mainly because of its inefficient operations. Following the large-scale entry of mobile phone and internet service providers, the revenue earning of the BTTB has been on the decline in recent years. For instance, the BTTB generated surplus revenue of Tk. 4.92 billion in 2005-06 compared to that of Tk. 11.20 billion in 2001-02. The surplus revenue declined further in the last fiscal.
However, there is still scope for the BTTB to continue to be the number one in the telecom sector. To make that happen, the government has to give up its control over the BTTB and offer the majority shares to the private sector. A private -sector led management can only infuse the much-needed dynamism into the company and help it compete in the market. If the government was bent up on keeping its hold on the BTTB offering minority shares to general investors, the demise of the telecom giant would just a matter of time.