Banglalink CEO vows zero tolerance for misconduct

Banglalink's Chief Executive Officer Erik Aas yesterday vowed to take a zero tolerance approach toward non-compliance in his company.

Since Aas assumed his current role in December last year, Banglalink has terminated its contracts with five vendors as well as some employees for non-compliance.

Asked whether there was corruption in the company, he said: "Unfortunately there are some employees who were found involved in activities that violated the code of conduct."

"Some of our colleagues were not compliant with our systems, so we have terminated them in accordance with the company rules," he said in his first interaction with the media as the CEO of the country's second largest mobile phone operator.

"And now we have taken a zero tolerance policy towards any such misconduct," he said at the press meet held at the capital's Lakeshore Hotel.

Aas did not elaborate on the employees' misconduct.

Aas, a Norwegian, was previously the CEO of market leader Grameenphone from October 2004 to October 2007.

 The Banglalink CEO said the operators are in the transition phase: they are shifting to their new age role as a digital service provider.

"For this journey, we are doing restructuring within the company. We offered a voluntary separation scheme to our employees who don't want to be a part of this change."

On February 11, the chief technology officer of Banglalink, Perihane Elhamy, was besieged by employees at its headquarters for several hours after the company terminated a mid-level employee, Shariful Islam, without showing any reason.

The labour unrest took a turn for the worse on February 13, which prompted the operator to close the head office and all regional offices.

A section of Banglalink employees proposed an employees' union and demanded the intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for successful registration of the union.

They also demanded her help in stopping the harassment from the management and ensuring their job security.

Asked about the proposed employees' union at Banglalink, Aas said: "The labour authority will decide the matter. As far as I know, there is such an application pending before that authority. All I can say is that we follow the labour law."

Since its inception in 2005, Banglalink has invested Tk 19,704.6 crore, but is yet to count any profits, despite having the second largest subscriber base in Bangladesh.

"The company had set a target to make profits last year and everything was going according to plan in the first three quarters. But the last quarter was awful," Aas said.

In 2015, Banglalink's gross revenue stood at Tk 4,710 crore, up 8 percent year-on-year, said VimpelCom, the operator's parent company, in its annual statement last week.

Asked about the company's future plans, Aas said: "Currently, only 9 percent of our revenue comes from the internet -- this is the place we can go faster."

He cited the fast expanding Facebook subscriber base in Bangladesh to further his point. At present, there are two crore Facebook users in Bangladesh and it will be double within the next two years.

Subsequently, the operator is now fully concentrating on installing more 3G network towers.

Currently, Banglalink has 3,700 3G-enabled sites across the country, with plans to add 2,000 more before Ramadan.

He said the importance of voice calls will progressively diminish.

Aas also touched upon the impending merger between Robi and Airtel.

He said the regulator should ensure a level-playing field in the industry, while citing the spectrum allocation as a case in point.

Currently, Grameenphone has 32 MHz spectrums in three bands, while Banglalink has 20 MHz. But after the merger, Robi will have 39.8 MHz spectrum, which will create uneven spectrum scenario in the market.