Bangladesh telecoms sector ‘riddled with problems’, says new minister Mustafa Jabbar

Bangladesh's telecoms sector is infested with problems, which the newly appointed Minister Mustafa Jabbar has described as ‘cancer’.

The appointment of the 68-year-old IT entrepreneur as a technocrat minister has come as a surprise, but there had been no doubt about the portfolio he would be given— the Ministry of Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology.

After joining his new job on Wednesday, he attended a reception hosted by the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information or BASIS— the trade body of IT entrepreneurs.

Speaking to media there, he said, “After my one-day experience (as the minister), I would say the IT- related avenue of the government faces a thousand times more problems, which I had been aware of as an outsider.”

“It was beyond my imagination that the telecom division has problems like cancer and there had been no initiatives to resolve them. It is unfortunate when ministry officials, even our very own (TIM) Nurul Kabir (the secretary general of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh), said they were in a blind alley.”

After the Awami League formed government in 2009, Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju was tasked with the ministry. After three and a half years, Shahara Khatun was given the portfolio.

In 2014, when the Sheikh Hasina administration took office for the second consecutive term, Abdul Latif Siddique was made the telecoms minister, but months later he lost the cabinet berth following his controversial remarks on hajj.

The following year, Tarana Halim was appointed as the state minister for the telecommunications division.

In a major cabinet shake-up, she was moved to the information ministry on Tuesday with a year before the government runs its term. 

Asked whether a year would be enough to address the torrent of problems in the telecoms and IT ministry, Jabbar said, "It would be a big achievement if the wall at the end of the blind alley can be torn down. We have not failed anywhere in the ICT avenue, it took time, but then again it took time for me to become a minister.”

He said no-one lobbied to make him a minister. “You will be able to realise within a day or two that the prime minister may have gone for such a daring move as the ICT and telecom divisions are practically infested with problems.”

A confident Jabbar told the media, “Not everyone in the government is IT-friendly, but Mustafa Jabbar will get what he wants after speaking with the prime minister for 10 minutes.”

Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy assists her on the sector in his capacity as the ICT Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister.

Jabbar said he would be available to everyone on the phone or at office even after being a minister.

“The state minister for telecoms is not there anymore and I would not comment on why that’s the case. So, I would need to give more time there. But I would spend more time at the ICT Division, because everyone will be able to meet me there,” he added.

Speaking at the reception of BASIS, which he serves as president, Jabbar said he would be open talks with Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission or BTRC soon.

“The BTRC chairman spoke with me on the phone. I told him ‘Treat me as your student on the first day, but later onwards I will be the teacher’.”

He came down hard on the regulators for not fixing the rate of internet bandwidth, but doing it for voice calls.

Addressing the audience at the BASIS reception, Jabbar requested everyone to not ask him to adopt unfair practices.

“I cannot taint my 65 years of achievement for the ministerial position. I can change Bangladesh within a year to show the government how it can be done.”