GP’s sponsorship deals breached internal guidelines: Report

Grameenphone broke with its internal guidelines in 11 of 250 sponsorship agreements, including one with the police, the mobile operator's parent company Telenor said in a statement Tuesday after an internal audit.

"Breaches of our internal guidelines are unacceptable, and corrective and preventive measures have therefore been initiated," Telenor said.

The first time Telenor's internal audit uncovered unacceptable sponsorships at Grameenphone was in 2013. The most serious breach was the sponsorship of a sports tournament.

Meanwhile, a Grameenphone spokesperson later in the day told The Daily Star "some deviation in the sponsorship approval process were uncovered during regular internal audits and have been fully addressed by the relevant internal functions within both Grameenphone and Telenor."

"We are confident that the measures taken as a result of these findings will strengthen our internal processes while ensuring event stricter adherence to Grameenphone's policies," he said.

The case was reported to Sigve Brekke, who at that time was head of Asia and chair of Grameenphone's Board of Directors.

The company initiated several measures, including a review of the sponsorship guidelines and the establishment of a sponsorship committee to approve all agreements.

In 2016, Telenor Group Internal Audit conducted a compliance review of the new guidelines and uncovered a new set of unacceptable sponsorships.

The agreements included sponsorships of sports tournaments, Bangladesh police's jubilee celebrations, the refurbishment of their canteen as well as financial support to a phone book publication for the police, according to the statement.