After the fall of the Awami League government, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) took an initiative to collect the unpaid fees which was not possible during the Hasina regime. In post Hasina Bangladesh, on August 18, BTRC took an initiative to collected Tk 10 crore 24 lakhs from Summit Communications as share equity increase and share ownership change fee.
Mushfiq Mannan, Commissioner of Finance Department of BTRC, confirmed the recovery of this money after going through many ups and downs.
According to the BTRC Commission sources, Summit Communications Limited and Submarine Cable Systems and Services Operator Licensee’s share equity increase and change of share ownership started from March 24 this year. The application and related documents to BTRC to obtain this approval showed that Summit was actually transferring and selling shares under the guise of issuing new shares. Therefore, from the beginning, the legal and licensing department of BTRC wanted to impose the share issue charges on Summit itself. But Summit Communications Chairman Muhammad Farid Khan is the younger brother of Awami League presidium member and then Aviation and Tourism Minister Farooq Khan. The commission failed to do this as Farid was also a close friend of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and ICT advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
As a result, on June 12, the then administration of BTRC had to decide to transfer Summit Communication shares without any fee. However, when the Sheikh Hasina government collapsed in the face of anti-discrimination student movement on August 5, the commission now got a footing to withdraw that decision. At that time, the then chairman Engineer Mohiuddin Ahmed was absent from the office. In the commission meeting held in the absence of the chairman, the issue of share transfer and sale under the guise of Summit Communication’s new share issue was emphasized. In view of this, on August 15, BTRC sent a letter from the company’s licensing branch stating that the decision not to pay their share transfer fee to Summit Communications has changed. The letter stipulated 10 days to pay an equivalent amount of 5.5 per cent on the gross sales value of the transferred charge and VAT at the rate of 15 per cent on this amount. But this time Summit Communication deposited the amount due as BTRC through check on the next working day without any authority or legal recourse.
After its debut in 2009, Summit Communications has become the largest company in the telecom and internet sector in the last 15 years. The company sought BTRC’s approval to issue new shares worth Tk 170 crore 5 lakh to two separate companies based in Abu Dhabi and Mauritius by the end of March. According to the application, a total of 14.20 crore new shares will be issued at a rate of Tk 12 each.
Accordingly, a month later a letter was sent to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for pre-approval of the share issue and the approval was received the following month. Then on June 12 this year, BTRC allowed Summit to transfer shares without any charge.
According to sources, BTRC sought legal opinion from a law firm before sending it for government approval, which said that since Summit is only issuing new shares, the rule of paying 5.5 percent fee on total share sale price will not apply to Summit Communications. In this case Summit also mentions the same ‘this fee is not applicable, as the company is raising its capital by issuing new shares.’
According to the share sale agreement documents submitted by Summit to BTRC, one of the shareholders of Summit’s new share deal to Global Energy, an Abu Dhabi-based company, is Adiba Aziz Khan, who is daughter of the elder brother of Summit Communications Chairman Farid Khan and Summit Group Chairman Muhammad Aziz Khan. This company was issued 9.44 crore shares worth Tk 113 crore 38 lakh out of new shares. On the other hand, another 4.4 crore shares worth Tk 48.59 crore were given to Mauritius-based Sequoia Infra Tech.
Fahim Mashroor, ‘Bangladesh 2.0’ reformation citizen coordinator and founder of bdjobs, said that our telecom sector is not safe in the hands of such companies. So now we should be talking about national telecommunications security. Similarly, it is necessary to discuss how the money smuggled out of the country through these companies can be brought back to the country and invested in the local industry.
