Nine audit firms respond to BTRC\\\'s call

Nine local audit firms in response to the telecom regulator's fresh call have shown interest to examine accounts of mobile phone operators to verify their compliance with the regulator, officials said.
Foreign firms may work as associates with the interested local audit companies. According to the Expression of Interest (EOI), invited by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in February, the foreign firms will not have direct access in the auditing process.
BTRC officials said the commission will scrutinise proposals of the audit firms, and may select two or three of them for examining whether the mobile companies are complying with the regulator or not.
They also said recently there are some debates regarding SIM tax, account maintenance, and duty on accessories and software import by the cell-phone companies, which can be resolved through the audit.    
This is the third such initiative of BTRC, as it earlier tried twice to bring the mobile phone operators under the audit purview. The previous initiatives could not be successful for various reasons.
BTRC audited Grameenphone (GP) in 2011, but it was declared illegal by the country's apex court.
On January 9, 2013, BTRC again invited EOI for appointment of new audit firms. However, the process faced a legal challenge from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB).
ICAB argued that international firms could take part in the bid only under joint ventures, led by local firms.
According to BTRC high officials, audit firms will need to find out the operators' actual amount of generated revenue as well as the calculation procedure in making payment to BTRC, NBR or other agencies for a particular or whole licensing period, and reconcile those with their respective  financial statements.
They will also analyse audit reports to discover understatements, misstatements or manipulation of facts, if any.
Besides, the audit firms will also examine suspicious invoicing by the operators in importing hardware or software.
On the basis of the audit reports, the regulator will take action against operators, if found guilty.
Gradually all the private land-phone operators, internet service providers, international gateways, inter-connectivity exchanges, international internet gateways, and WiMax operators will come under the audit process, said the officials.
On May 2011, the telecom regulator appointed a firm that audited GP, and submitted a report in October. The report claimed that Tk 30.34 billion in revenue remained unpaid by GP.
The High Court ruling in the same year that declared illegal the appointment of audit firms by the telecom regulator was also upheld by the Supreme Court in last December.
The regulator sent an audit firm to the second largest operator - Banglalink - but it could not complete the task.