BTRC appoints firm to audit Robi

After a delay of five months, the telecom regulator yesterday signed an agreement with audit firm Masih Muhith Haque & Co to examine Robi's books.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission was supposed to sign the agreement with the audit firm in October last year when its Indian partner, TR Chadha & Co, abruptly pulled out.

Masih Muhith Haque later took on a new foreign partner, PKF Sridhar & Santhanam LLP.

The firm will start its audit in the next two weeks and will finish the job within 180 days, as per the agreement with the BTRC. It will take home a fee of Tk 7.82 crore for the job.

Robi, the third largest operator in the country in terms of active subscribers, is in the process of merging with Airtel, the fourth largest operator. The merger will take a couple of months for completion. The BTRC though is yet to take a decision on the audit of Airtel's books.

"As it is a technical audit, it will not be impossible to conduct audit into Airtel's portion after the merger," said an official related with the merger issue.

The BTRC has an allocation of Tk 40.88 crore to run audits into mobile companies under the telecom act.

With the audit, the BTRC can check whether the mobile operators are complying with the licence conditions, paying the correct taxes and fees, and sharing revenues with the regulator and other agencies.

The audit will bring discipline to the sector, said BTRC officials.

Earlier in October last year, the BTRC signed a deal with Toha Khan Zaman & Co to run an audit into Grameenphone.

The BTRC is yet to float the tender for Banglalink's audit.