Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), the state telecoms provider, also misrepresented facts to the PMO about one of the vendors that won the deal whom the BTTB was to blacklist instead. Such inconsistencies have touched off fresh controversy about the multi-million-dollar procurement in the public sector telecoms.

Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman on April 15 approved the BTTB's cellphone purchase proposal, despite ordering its re-tender on January 24. Such a volte-face allowed Huawei Technologies of China ($35 million) and Siemens of Germany ($46 million) to jointly clinch the mobile phone deal.

The Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement (CCPP) also unanimously rejected the mega project on January 24, but family members of the BNP leadership allegedly influenced a reversal of the CCPP decision and the PM's nod to the project.

The BTTB on February 28 accused Huawei of submitting forged documents in two other bids for supplying a 48,000-line and a 62,000-line telephone exchanges and consequently disqualified both bids of the Chinese vendor.

The Daily Star on April 16 reported on Huawei's forgeries and cited the Public Procurement Regulation (PPR), which stipulates BTTB blacklist Huawei, prompting Post and Telecommunications Minister M Aminul Haque to hurriedly convene a press conference on April 18. The minister resolutely defended Huawei's acts and downplayed the government's non-compliance with the legal provisions to punish the vendor.

The PMO, though, took note of Huawei's activities and Muhammad Tahir Hussain, director of the PMO, attached The Daily Star report to his letter No. 43.36.03.00.00.02.2002-68 dated April 19, 2004 and sought immediate clarification on Huawei's case from the telecoms ministry.

But the ministry dragged its foot

on clarifying the matter and after a week, on April 25, AHM Ziaul Haque, senior assistant secretary of the ministry, forwarded the PMO's enquiry to the BTTB.

M Fazlul Haque, a BTTB member, replied to the PMO's query on April 27 and the ministry on May 8, after another week, sent BTTB's position paper to the PMO.

Surprisingly, the prime minister gave the nod to the $76 million mobile phone deal on April 25, 2004, before her own office received a reply to the query.

Conflicting reports have now surfaced over the premier's premature approval. Sources fear the PM was neither made aware of the controversies in this deal nor was she apprised of the reply to the enquiry pending.

Some influential ministers, a few in the ruling BNP hierarchy and a section of PMO high officials along with the BTTB's top management reportedly misled the PM.

The Daily Star contacted Munshi Abdur Rashid, director general-2 at the PMO and a BTTB board member, who declined to comment on 'this sensitive matter' and suggested consulting PM's Principal Secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui.

Having failed to reach Siddiqui on the phone, The Daily Star sent him a fax on June 12 to clarify the ambiguity, but he is yet to make a reply.

A series of deliberate misinformation has meanwhile been revealed in BTTB's reply to the PMO on Huawei's activities. M Fazlul Haque, the BTTB member, claimed the bids for the 48,000-line and 62,000-line projects were invited before the Public Procurement Regulation 2003 (PPR 2003) came into effect.

"Therefore, there was no scope of evaluating the bids according to the PPR 2003," he wrote, brushing aside The Daily Star report.

The BTTB's internal reports, however, confirm that both the bids were evaluated according to the PPR, providing the proof that it misinformed the PMO to save a particular company from getting blacklisted and help it seal the $35 million cellular mobile deal.

Fazlul Haque told The Daily Star he signed the letter as drafted by the BTTB's director (Procurement). He said it was not his job to mention Huawei's incompatibilities while replying to the PMO's enquiry. "Let the court of law decide if Huawei is guilty or innocent," he said.

Nadir Shah Querayeshi, BTTB's director (Procurement) however quipped, "We partially complied with the PPR 2003 and so, are not obligated to blacklist Huawei for its submission of forged documents."

BTTB Chairman Nurul Islam, who approved the reply to the PMO's enquiry, told The Daily Star blacklisting Huawei for submitting false documents in the two bids would lead to re-tendering and delay in the mobile project launch.

"I think we have sufficiently punished the vendor by technically disqualifying it in the 48,000-line and 62,000-line projects," Islam claimed.