In 2002, Siemens COM paid approximately $140,000 in bribes in connection with a tender worth approximately $35 million for the supply of equipment and services related to a Global Systems mobile network for Vietel, a government owned telecommunications provider founded by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense. P. 27

Between 2004 and 2006, Siemens COM paid approximately $5.3 million in bribes to government officials in Bangladesh in connection with a contract with the Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (“BT’TB) to install mobile telephone services. The. total value of the contract was approximately $40.9 million. The payments ‘were made to three business consultants pursuant to sham agreements calling for services associatedwith the mobile telephone project. The ultimate recipients of the payments included the son of the then-Prime Minister in Bangladesh, the Minister of the Ministry of Posts & Telecommunicationsin Bangladesh, and the BTTB Director of Procurement. In addition, Siemens Limited Bangladesh, a regional company, hired relatives. of two other BTTB and Ministry of Post and Telecom officials. p. 19

Siemens COM made approximately $12.7 million in suspicious payments in connection with Nigerian projects, with at least $4.5 million paid as bribes in connection with four telecommunications projects with government customers in Nigeria, including Nigeria Telecommunications Limited and the Ministry of Communications. The total value of the four contracts was approximately $130 million. The practice of paying bribes by Siemens COM in Nigeria was long-standing and systematic. According to a high ranking official within Siemens Limited Nigeria, a regional company, corrupt payments in 2000 and 2001 commonly reached 15 to 30% of the contracts’ value. p. 20

From the Siemens Complaint (SEC v Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Case: 1 :08-cv-02167, before the US District Court, for the District of Columbia).

The fixed and mobile operators’ outbound calls will first terminate in one of the six ICX. Then the calls will be processed in the IGW followed by getting routed to the overseas destinations via BTTB’s submarine cable station. Similar path will be followed for the inbound overseas calls.

BTRC will host a pre-bid meeting on November 5, 2007 and the offers will be received on or before 12:00 PM of November 22, 2007.

The industry has been demanding competition in this segment but the political governments have never showed respect to this. Even the BNP-led four party alliance government had ordered to end BTTB’s monopoly in a cabinet meeting in 2003.

But the regulator has not taken any move to materialise it. This delay has rather helped the mushrooming of illegal international call termination outfits. Siblings and offspring of the powerful quarters flexed political muscles and operated such illegal outfits right under the authorities’ nose.

The fixed mobile telephone operators along with numerous BTTB officials also joined the bonanza of enormous windfall. These factors are blamed for the deliberately belated liberalisation of international telecoms gateway.

Once the licenses are awarded, the very last barrier to liberalise the country’s telecoms sector will be removed. State-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) has been enjoying the monopoly over international gateway.

But the success of current liberalisation move is facing questions for various reasons.

No foreign company or foreign joint venture will qualify to apply for IGW or ICX license, BTRC chairman categorically told the media in a press conference on August 17, 2007. Even the non-resident Bangladeshis’ business outfits are not eligible either.

“Only the companies fully owned by resident Bangladeshi citizens are qualified for these international telecoms licenses.” He also said fixed or mobile phone operators also cannot contest in this race. But the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) gets the ICX as well as the IGW licenses by default being the country’s incumbent international telecoms monopoly.

All these provisions are the result of the International Long Distance Telecommunication Services (ILDTS) Policy-2007 which has been enacted without public consultation. This policy also remains undisclosed and the authorities are reluctant to reveal the reason behind such secrecy.

:: bdnews24.com ::

Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) – A suspected act of sabotage derailed telecommunications transmission optical fibre cable links between Dhaka and Chittagong Monday night.Submarine cable subscribers in Dhaka got disconnected at 7:30pm.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board rushed a maintenance team to the spot on the outskirts of Comilla town but failed to put the connection back on.

A senior official told bdnews24.com that the BTTB suspected the cable cut was an “act of sabotage”.

”There is no maintenance work of the Roads and Highways Division in the area which is generally the primary cause of such cable cuts,” he said in support of his argument.

”We cannot repair the cable in the night as we don’t have enough workers.”

BTTB has approximately 17,000 employees.