The project would have been completed by now if it was not suspended and the BTTB could have greatly reduced the present overseas call congestion that emerged due to a crackdown on illegal VoIP operation. According to the Public Procurement Regulation (PPR) 2003, such suspension is illegal.

"By now, this scheme would have added 10,000 international circuits with the BTTB's existing 13,000 circuits. If the BTTB had 30,000 international circuits, the country would not even need any legal or illegal VoIP facility for overseas calls," notes a well-paced BTTB source.

Roughly 10,000 international circuits would earn the BTTB an annual revenue of at least Tk 200 crore.

Sources said the telecom ministry through a circular on November 11 last year suspended the project following publication of a news in the daily Observer headlined "Tk 7 cr financial crime involved irregularities in BTTB mobile phone project".

But follow up investigations found nothing wrong in the project. Yet till date the project remains buried in a deep bureaucratic tangle created by the telecom ministry.

Between 2000 and 2006, a powerful circle involving top decision-makers to high officials in the ministry and the BTTB had prevented the government from legalising VoIP or taking action against illegal VoIP operators, and also from expanding the BTTB's international call handling capability.

This nexus helped illegal VoIP operators bag more than Tk 1,200 crore every year, and drastically cut the BTTB's international call revenue. "In fact, if the BTTB had an ITX big enough to handle all foreign calls, people would not even know what VoIP stands for. VoIP emerged as an alternative way for foreign calls which the BTTB was failing to provide," pointed out a telecom expert.

The BTTB floated tender for setting up the ITX under the 10 lakh T&T Mobile Phone Project in May last year in which Swedish company Ericsson AB and Chinese Huawei Technologies submitted bids.

Being technically qualified Ericsson in August won the bid with a price offer of Tk 7.3 crore, while Huawei's bid, cheaper by Tk 2.2 crore, was disqualified for serious technical and other flaws.

A seven-member Tender Evaluation Committee (TEC) found Huawei's offer as "substantially non-responsive" for serious design limitation and failing to provide performance certificate. As required, Huawei's design did not accommodate hard disc drive as the primary backup with duplicated configuration, and also duplicated secondary backup drives. Moreover, the TEC report also mentioned that Huawei had earlier bagged contracts for projects by lying about the same flaws in their offers to BTTB's tenders and have already installed exchanges which do not meet these mandatory technical criteria. The report also observed that it will not be possible for Huawei to rectify these major flaws due to their design constraints.

As Huawei was technically disqualified, its price offer was not comparable with that of Ericsson as per the procurement guidelines of the government, sources mentioned.

In October, the BTTB issued a letter of intent (LOI) to Ericsson for installation of the ITX, and on November 1, Ericsson gave performance bond. This binds the bidder and the authorities into a contract. Regulation 36 of the PPR 2003 says: Notification of award and signing of contract. The notification of award establishes a contract between the procuring entity and the successful tender.

"This implies that an arbitrary suspension of that tender by the ministry is illegal," notes a PPR expert.

Sources said a top official of the telecom ministry, who had taken benefits from Huawei, became angry at this development. But since the tender was flawless, he decided to teach the BTTB a lesson. And he fed a newspaper a story saying that the BTTB tender evaluation committee has done wrong by awarding the project contract to Ericsson, instead of Huawei.

"Following the publication of the report in that paper on November 6, the ministry did not even wait for a BTTB clarification on the matter and went for suspension of the project on November 11," one source said.

Right at that time, the secretary concerned, under the financial sponsorship of Huawei, was attending a programme abroad, official documents show.

Earlier on March 27 last year, in dealing with a complaint for review filed by a bidder, the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of the planning ministry gave its verdict that if members of a tender evaluation committee (TEC) go on a foreign trip funded by a bidder, that becomes under the purview of Conflict of Interest (COI) as per the Public Procurement Regulation 2003. As per the PPR regulation 15 (2), in such a case the tender of that bidder will be cancelled.

This complaint concerned the then telecom secretary Mahmud Hasan Mansur and another member of the TEC who went on a foreign trip in February, sponsored by Huawei, a bidder of an optical fibre cable project. Huawei, which was represented by now arrested BNP leader Naser Rahman and his brother, also sent two members of another TEC on a trip in October, 2005.

The CPTU recommended that the government take action as per Regulation 15, which includes blacklisting Huawei for corrupt practices.

Though such a verdict has banned foreign trips for secretary or members of a TEC with the finances of a bidder, the secretary repeated the past mistake.

"Again, Huawei influenced the telecom ministry's action by sponsoring visits of secretary Mia Mushtak Ahmed and another official to China and Australia from November 6 to 12. The secretary has thus violated the planning ministry's earlier restriction," one source mentioned.

Suspension of the ITX project was followed by a series of time-killing actions. On November 27, the ministry formed a two-member investigation committee with a joint secretary and member (finance) of the BTTB without naming the incumbents. The then member (finance) Jamil Osman and joint secretary M Nuruzzaman Khan interviewed two members of the 7-member TEC including the BTTB chairman in early December.

But in late December, Jamil Osman was transferred to another ministry. This created a fresh loophole as the unfinished investigation report was then left with joint secretary M Nuruzzaman Khan, who was due to retire on January 22 this year.

On December 20, the BTTB with all details asked the CPTU to verify if the tender had violated the PPR 2003. The CPTU noted that if the investigation committee sought any clarification through the ministry, then it can give its remarks.

On December 27, the BTTB member (development and planning) informed the ministry in a report that the tender for this project strictly followed PPR 2003 and there had been no ambiguity. The report added that the BTTB's legal adviser also suggested suspension.

Finally, on January 22, the lone member of the two-member probe committee filed his investigation report categorically stating that there was no substance behind the allegation made in the Observer report.

The probe report adds that the whole tender followed PPR 2003 and there is no scope for the TEC to compare price offer of Huawei with that of Ericsson as Huawei's was non-responsive.

This report was then sent to the adviser to telecom ministry on January 24, who made no remark on it.

But the ministry termed the investigation incomplete, as only one member of the two-member body had signed it. The ministry now wants the other member's signature, who no longer holds the post of member (finance) of the BTTB. "Using this pretext, the ministry has refrained from lifting the suspension of the project, which is helping none but illegal VoIP terminators" notes one source.