Telecommunication in Bangladesh & Teletalk
All of us know it at least that Teletalk Bangladesh Limited is a
Government owned public limited company. It launched its operation
on March 31, 2005 with a view to creating fair competition among
private mobile phone operators, lowering call rate and enhancing the
Government revenue. Now it is April 2008. The achievements of this
company over the past three years are not very few but the history
of its corruption is not insignificant as well since its inception.
The name of the first Managing Director Md. Obaidullah is on the ACC
(Anti Corruption Commission) list of suspected corrupt personnel;
you can check it. There are many kinds of accusation against him.
Recruiting people directly without any circular, selling SIM's
illegally, embezzlement and misuse of funds are some of them. We
want proper punishment of these corrupt secretaries- engineers-
officers-employees in accordance with prevailing law. But the whole
Teletalk family cannot be mistreated because of a few corrupt
personnel.
There are five more mobile phone operators at present in our
country. The very influential Grameenphone, the AKTEL, the
Banglalink, the CityCell and the WARID. The Norwegian company
Telenor owns the 62% share of the Grameenphone; the remaining 38% is
owned by Grameen Telecom Corporation. Grameenphone got its license
fully free of charge in the name of Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Since its
launching it has been draining thousand crores of money out the
country although it was to invest from its revenue on our country.
We don't know the exact figure as those who deal with these figures
are always highly entertained by the Grameenphone.
The owner of the Banglalink is the Egyptian multinational company
ORASCOM TELECOM. It has turned into the second largest operator in
the country by its skillful management although it came into the
market in February 2005. We can assume that the lion share of its
revenue is draining out the country. The same scenario can be well
imagined for Warid Telecom of Abu Dhabi Group based in Dubai.
The 70% share of the third largest operator AKTEL is owned by TM
International. TM means Telecom Malaysia. The remaining 30% share is
owned by the native A. K. Khan Group. So what do we see? The most of
the revenue of AKTEl is also draining out the country.
The first mobile phone operator of this country is CITYCELL. The 45%
of its share is now owned by Singtel Asia Pacific Investments based
in Singapore. The Pacific Motors owns 31.43% and the remaining
23.57% is owned by Far East Telecom Limited.
Valued readers, most of you and I myself do not use Teletalk to an
extent that can be counted. Why don't we use Teletalk? The answer is
very simple: the network is not good. The line gets cut while
talking, the sound is not clear, noises and echo in the line etc.
So what to do in order to improve the network? It needs to install
good quality telecom equipments of good companies, increase the
number of BTS's (simply towers) and employ qualified engineers for
operation and maintenance of these equipments. It needs a huge
amount of money to do these. Does Teletalk lack in money? As far as
I can guess, Teletalk does possess necessary amount of money.
Besides, the vendor company provides a lot of opportunities these
days of sheer competition. For example, I am a vendor company and
you are an operator. Just come to an agreement, give me an
opportunity. I will supply your necessary equipments, I will install
those equipments for you, I will even look after the equipments if
needed. You will just pay me from your revenue by degrees as per the
agreement.
Why then Teletalk lacks behind? Do you remember how much passion it
created when it came into operation? Where did the passion go? The
management of Teletalk had definitely been bad and is still bad but
no member of the Board of Directors of Teletalk can avoid his
responsibility in this mishap?
Valued readers, for your kind information the chairman of the Board
of Directors of Teletalk is the honourable Secretary of the Ministry
of Posts & Telecommunication. Other than him there are one joint
secretary of the same ministry, the chairman of BTTB (Bangladesh
Telegraph & Telephone Board), one joint secretary of Ministry of
Finance, one joint secretary of Ministry of Commerce, one joint
secretary of Ministry of Science & IT and a few honourable members
from various departments of BTTB. As far as I know, this membership
is fixed by posts.
Valued readers, you must have read in newspapers that a project
worth about 541 crore for multiplying and improving Teletalk network
is pending for the Board's consent for about one year. But why? Why
keep such an important project pending for months especially while
in such a dynamic and competitive market of telecommunication? As a
conscious citizen of the country I have a deep urge to know why the
Board of Directors is not supporting the project. Is the Board
blind? Doesn't it see how the multinational companies with their
colourful and clever advertisements are consuming the people of my
country? The newspaper which we, the students still regard as an
ideal print medium also seems to overlook this fact. We are so
shocked. Can't we check our craving for the big advertisements for
the sake of motherland?
Again, there has probably begun an evil design to sell the share of
Teletalk to a Korean company. Why? If Teletalk was not financially
sound how did they propose the project and how did the Board passed
it, in their words, ethically? We do not need to go very deep to
realize that Teletalk doesn't earn a little from the 1.2 million
subscribers. Alternatively, if the situation of the company is as
worse as they intend to believe then why don't they think of public
share?
After Mr. Obaidullah this is the first time Teletalk has got a full
MD. The General Manager (Transmission) of BTTB Mr. Mojibor Rahman
has recently joined Teletalk as Managing Director. He should realize
how much we are expecting from him.
Honestly speaking, all of us want to use Teletalk. We want to keep
the countrymen's money in the country. Hence we have a request here
to all respected board members that they should give up their small
personal interest for the greater welfare of the motherland and work
together for the good of Teletalk.
In the last, I want to inform the valued readers that in this
writing I have very cautiously avoided some words. Because I firmly
believe that at least under the good governance of this caretaker
government no honourable secretary can go into the pocket of any
single company or a vested quarter.
