আমি একজন পর্যটন কর্মী। বেড়াতে, বেড়ানোর উৎসাহ দিতে এবং বেড়ানোর আয়োজন করতে ভালোবাসি।

Grameenphone rejoinder and our reply
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THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2014 AUTHOR / SOURCE: ... E-mailPrintPDF
Tahmeed Azizul Huq, Head of Corporate Communications of Grameenphone, in a rejoinder to The Independent claimed that the newspaper carried a report on March 17, 2014 under the headline “The biggest offers the worst” is unsubstantiated and that the survey based on which the report was published did not exist.



Below is the rejoinder and reply of the newspaper

(1) We are horrified to see such an unsubstantiated report published on a distinguished newspaper like The Independent.

Our Reply: Following is the scanned image of the BTRC report which proves that The Independent did not publish an unsubstantiated report. Our report is well substantiated and we stand by it.


(2) Although the report claimed to be based on BTRC survey, we are not aware of any such survey and when contacted BTRC also denied any knowledge about such survey.

Our Reply: The above scanned image proves that the report exists and our report also quoted the BTRC Chairman. We would also like to point out that the ignorance of GP regarding this particular report does not absolve the fact that the report does not exist.

(3) The report contains a comment from our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer but he was asked about quality of service in general terms and was not informed about the survey by the reporter.

Our Reply: On March 18, 2014 a day after publication of the report a team of five top GP officials met the editor of The Independent and raised this issue. The Editor of the newspaper very clearly said that if GP feels that they had not been given enough space to clarify, GP is welcome to send a clarification which this newspaper would publish in full length, which all the officials present during the meeting agreed to.

We are astonished to see the rejoinder instead of the clarification which the GP top officials said they would send.

(4) Grameenphone as a compliant company regularly submits reports to BTRC on our service quality and there was no disagreement with the regulator regarding the report. Grameenphone is very serious about the quality and constantly monitor the network. Our test result shows that in Dhaka our call drop rate was only 0.52% in January-February 2014. Our call success rate is 98.78% which is similar to all other operators. We are surprised to see such an allegation against our service quality, which hurts our image severely.


Our Reply: In the absence of weak regulatory framework and supervision we have seen time and again that a few dishonest multinationals in our country takes advantage and indulge in illegal activities violating laws of the land.

We would like to point out that Grameenphone which claims to be compliant and very sensitive about its brand to have been caught red handed for conducting illegal VoIP and getting fined on two occasions in the year 2007.

In total GP had to pay a fine of Tk 555 crore for making illegal money through VoIP. The company top management had to go through a major reshuffle to retain its licence.

We would like to point out further that a BTRC sponsored audit found GP to have evaded over Tk 3000 crore in tax, an issue which is pending in the court.

Click Here to see our original report