Grameenphone (GP) has urged the telecoms regulator to withdraw its recent audit demand of over Tk 125 billion, which the mobile phone operator described as “legally baseless”.
In a letter to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Tuesday (Apr 16), the Norwegian Telenor’s subsidy called for discussions to reach a “logical solution”.
Grameenphone CEO Michael Foley claims the regulator’s audit demand did not reflect the company’s responses.
“Our opinions have been completely neglected in the BTRC’s demands,” Foley said in a media statement on Tuesday.
On Apr 2, BTRC issued a claim asking Grameenphone to pay around Tk 85 billion to the telecom regulator and over Tk 40 billion to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) within 10 working days.
Appointed by BTRC, the JVCA of Toha Khan Zaman & Co made the claim after conducting an Information and Systems Audit on GP’s operations from inception in 1997 till December, 2014.
Approximately Tk 62 billion of the claim has been charged as interest up to December, 2017.
With regard to NBR portion of the claim, the telecom operator has said that BTRC has “no authority to make a demand on behalf of NBR”, according to the statement.
“In this circumstance, Grameenphone reiterates its request to BTRC to withdraw the demand and to call for discussions to find an amicable resolution,” it added.