Grameen Telecom won't pay for Telenor wrongs
Grameen Telecom, the local shareholder of the country's largest mobile phone operator Grameenphone, said yesterday it was not ready to pay any fine for 'illegal' activities committed by Norwegian firm Telenor, its majority stakeholder.
Telenor owns a 62 percent share, while Grameen Telecom holds the remaining stake in Grameenphone, launched in 1996. Telenor controls the management of the cellphone company.
"Grameenphone is run by the Telenor management. So Telenor is to blame for any illegal activity. Why should we pay for their repeated illegal activities in Bangladesh?" a high official of Grameen Telecom told The Daily Star yesterday.
"Grameen Telecom has no association with illegal call termination business through VoIP conducted by Grameenphone," the official said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Bangladesh's telecom regulator fined Grameenphone Tk 168.4 crore and Tk 250 crore in separate cases for its involvement in illegal international call termination business through voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology. As a shareholder, Grameen Telecom will have to bear Tk 158.84 crore of the fine, while Telenor will pay Tk 260 crore.
Of the total amount of the fine, Grameenphone has so far paid Tk 218.4 crore from its account to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
However, an official of Grameenphone said Grameenphone board has endorsed the agreed fine, meaning every shareholder has come to a consensus to pay the fine.
Telenor in a statement on Friday said it was in complete agreement with Dr Muhammad Yunus, chairman of Grameen Telecom, that the circumstances surrounding the VoIP issue need further investigation, particularly to uncover the persons responsible.
Telenor stresses that it was an issue, which Grameenphone must respond to, in a process that includes both shareholders, the statement added.
In March 2008, Grameenphone said it appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers, an independent audit firm, to audit Grameenphone's alleged involvement in illegal international call termination.
About Telenor's alleged involvement in illegal internet telephony services, Dr Yunus in statement on Friday demanded that Telenor authorises ensure transparency in the matters, making public the investigation reports.
"We can't allow the name of Grameen to be tarnished directly or indirectly by inappropriate operations," Yunus said in a statement distributed through PR Newswire.
Earlier in reply to a query of The Daily Star, Esben Tuman, communications director of Telenor Asia, last month said: "We are working closely with Grameenphone in dealing with the VoIP issue. Any appropriate action cannot be decided upon until the final conclusions of Grameenphone's internal investigations are completed".
However, he told The Daily Star yesterday: "The fine imposed in connection with the VoIP case is a Grameenphone issue. The matter is dealt with in a correct and proper manner, and is therefore handled and paid by Grameenphone."
An internal conflict between Telenor and Grameen Telecom is not new. Both the shareholders are engaged in a race to keep the majority stake in $3.2-billion Grameenphone.
Referring to the 1996 deal, Yunus said Telenor and Grameen Telecom agreed that the joint company should become a locally operated company within six years with Bangladeshi management and majority Bangladeshi ownership.
"This has not happened. Telenor is unwilling to let go control of the company," complained Yunus, adding, "We are now being told that the words of the written agreement in a legal sense are non-committing statements. We relied on the words of the agreement."
"Telenor now tells me that it was a mistake to rely on their words," he wrote.
The Nobel laureate might take legal actions against Telenor to force it to honour the deal, according to media reports.
Both Telenor and Grameen Telecom agreed to go for offloading Grameenphone's shares by this month, subject to getting approval from the capital market regulator.
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