Check IGW calls: JS committee

The parliamentary standing committee of the communications ministry has recommended that the government audit calls going through the international gateways (IGW).

At a meeting on Wednesday, committee members said the government would be able to collect more revenue from the IGWs if the calls were audited.

After the meeting, committee chair Imran Ahmed told reporters that several IGWs owed large sums to the BTRC, the telecom regulator.

“When they’re taken to court, it takes too much time and revenue collection is delayed. If there was a system of call audit, instead, there would be no disputes and the revenue collection would be smooth,” he said.

According to records of the meeting, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) collected Tk 12.36 billion in revenue from 28 IGWs for the financial year 2013-14. Another Tk 11.38 billion was earned by way of annual licensing fee.

At the end of June these businesses owed the government a little over Tk 7 billion.

IGWs act as intermediaries on international phone calls. In 2012, the government gave licence to 22 new IGWs.

For each minute of an international call, IGWs make three cents or Tk 2.32 under current exchange rate. They are required to give 51.75 percent or about Tk 1.20 out of this to the government.

They also have to pay Tk 75 million every year for licence renewal.

Last year, the BTRC had temporarily blocked calls from 10 IGWs because of failing to make payments. Some companies are fighting cases with the regulator on these disputes.

The parliamentary committee said it had suggested that the regulator adopt airtime audit and SIM box detection technologies to crack down on illegal VoIP business and increase revenue.