BTRC forms panel to scrutinise 2009-24 recruitments, promotions, postings

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Sunday formed a committee to scrutinise the recruitment, promotion, and posting processes for positions ranging from assistant director to director over the 2009-24 period.  

This development followed a series of events based on the long unresolved government audit objections regarding the 2009-10 appointments of a large number of officials in the regulator from a telecom project, allegedly for onboarding Awami League-recommended individuals without any recruitment exams.  

The seven-member committee, headed by BTRC Director General for Legal and Licensing Ashis Kumar Kundu, will submit its report within 60 working days.  

Reports from the Posts, Telecommunication, Science, Information, and Technology Audit Directorate's 2020 report, and a 2021 enquiry report by the Posts and Telecommunications Division, found irregularities in the appointment of over a hundred officials.  

Around a dozen of the officials in question, backed by powerful Awami League leaders at the time, were promoted bypassing the rules, according to the reports seen by The Business Standard.  

For instance, the sister-in-law of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's former protocol officer and former Awami League MP Alauddin Ahmed Chowdhury Nasim's sister-in-law was recruited as a non-engineering assistant director without a master's degree, even though the circular specified a master's degree as a requirement. 

The BTRC later allowed her to meet the educational criteria nearly a decade later.  

The commission had compromised the major criteria of the December 2009 recruitment circulars, including educational background and age, according to the reports. 

Additionally, the government audit reports opposed the salary payments to many of the appointed officials in question, as the appointments did not fit the BTRC organogram.  

However, the BTRC did not take any corrective action over the years.  

After the fall of Sheikh Hasina in August last year, BTRC officials who were recruited through exams raised their voices against the decade-long dominance of the questioned officials within the regulator.  

In their letters to the interim government, they highlighted the discrimination they had faced in posting and promotion during the Awami League government.  

One of them recently told The Business Standard, "The illegal appointment of the project officials was part of an Awami League master plan to seize the regulatory office. They supported the irregularities and corruption that took place in the telecom sector for years."  

"The worst part is that, under the same circumstances, we took the recruitment tests, joined the office much later, while they were recruited overnight. We fell behind in the race for promotions, on top of the fact that they had long been receiving the unfair advantage of priority over the years," said another BTRC official, seeking anonymity.  

KM Serajum Munir, director general of the Posts, Telecommunication, Science, Information, and Technology Audit Directorate, had a meeting with BTRC officials last week, where he emphasised how to resolve the long-pending audit objections, according to sources.