BTCL’s Tk 463Cr 5G Project: Huawei’s win marred by controversy

It is often said that government files move at a snail's pace in Bangladesh, slowing down the speed of project implementation.

But when it came to awarding the Chinese telecom giant Huawei the tender for a 5G network infrastructure project, files moved at a record speed.

From notifying the financial opening date to awarding the tender, everything proceeded at an unprecedented pace, according to documents obtained by The Daily Star.

In so doing, the board of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), the project implementing agency, violated laws stated in the standard tender documents of the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU), the agency responsible for managing procurement by government bodies.

The haste and series of rule violations have raised concerns about transparency and fairness in the awarding of the work to Huawei, which faced resistance in most of the advanced nations in its bid to supply equipment for the 5G networks.

"It is unprecedented and impossible as well -- the government should investigate it," said AKM Fazlul Karim, a former director general of the CPTU.

In February last year, the telecom ministry tasked the BTCL to install an optical fibre transmission network in a Tk 463 crore project as part of the preparations for the ultra-fast 5G roll-out.

"The malpractice is obvious in every step of this project. It is surprising that the Anti-Corruption Commission has not taken any action yet."

— Abu Saeed Khan A senior policy fellow at LIRNEasia.

The tender floated by the BTCL in December last year had three takers: Huawei, ZTE and Nokia.

All the participants were allowed to clear the technical evaluation -- the first step of the process -- even though they did not fully meet the technical requirements of the project.

Documents pieced together by The Daily Star show that Asaduzzaman Chowdhury, the managing director of BTCL then, was penalised for not signing off on the technical evaluation report and calling for a fresh tender.

In October, he was demoted to the post of general manager of the Department of Telecommunications. Then on November 7, he was suspended by the Posts and Telecommunications Division, and the next day, departmental proceedings were initiated against him -- only for both the moves to be overturned by the court.

Meanwhile, on November 6, project director Md Monjir Ahmed asked the participants to come to the opening of the financial offers of the tender to be held on November 8 at 9:30 am at his office in Dhaka.

The companies were given less than 48 hours to send an authorised representative to the event when the rule stipulates at least seven days' notice.

A day after receiving the letter, ZTE, another Chinese telecom giant, sent a letter to Ahmed objecting to the irregularity in the tender process.

"At the same time, to protect our right to attend the financial offer opening meeting, we request you to issue a minimum 7-day notice for financial offer opening as per ITT clause 53.1 declared in the tender document, which was added as per standard tender document issued by CPTU. Otherwise, it will be a breach of terms of conditions stated in the tender document and result in infringement of our right given in the tender document," the letter said.

ZTE said that its representative was not in Bangladesh and it was not possible to fly the executive in on less than two days' notice.

It even requested the BTCL to not open the financial offer on the day that was scheduled and without the presence of their delegated authorised person.

However, the BTCL did not pay any heed to the request and went ahead and opened the financial offers on November 8.

By not giving the stipulated time to the bidder, the BTCL went against the rules that it articulated in its own tender document, said the former CPTU DG Karim.

"It's an international tender and the officials of the foreign companies just can't walk into the financial opening meeting on less than two days' notice," he added.

The irregularities in the tender process did not stop here: the notification of award of tender to Huawei -- which offered the lowest of Tk 326 crore -- was sent out at an 'unprecedented' speed.

In just two working days -- or four days if the weekend is counted -- the BTCL board completed all assessments and submitted the report on November 12.

According to the steps outlined in the tender document, even before the evaluation begins, the committee will have to take the necessary clarifications, correct arithmetical errors and convert all bidders' prices to a single currency.

Then they have to evaluate as per tender terms and compare to determine the lowest evaluated bidder and finally carry out the post-qualification assessments by obtaining up-to-date information on technical and financial qualification requirements of the tender.

Evaluation of financial offers requires a substantial amount of time, according to Karim.

"It is impossible to complete the evaluation of all documents in just two working days because documents must be thoroughly checked and verified."

The very next day, on November 13, during the BTCL's 216th board meeting, Huawei's purchase proposal was approved.

The following day, the notification of award or work order was issued to Huawei.

The meeting agenda should be issued to the board members at least 72 hours in advance unless the meeting is called on an emergency basis. And if there is a purchase order, the evaluation report must be provided to the board members 72 hours in advance to understand what they are going to approve, according to several BTCL officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

A board member told The Daily Star on the condition of anonymity that he received the notice of the board meeting on November 9 but it carried the signature of the BTCL company secretary dated November 8.

"I haven't received any meeting agenda for the 216th board of directors meeting with the invitation," the board member said.

It is very unusual to present the final report for a tender to the board that got the green light from the evaluation committee just a day earlier, said a former official of the BTCL who was involved in different tender processes.

It takes a few days to get the minutes prepared by the company secretary. The minutes then go to the managing director and are ultimately corrected and signed by the chairman. The whole process takes a minimum of 3 to 4 days.

"It is very surprising that the board has passed it and the notification of the award was issued the next day of the meeting. This seems like a staged awarding of an important project to a specific company," he said.

Md Anwar Hossain, managing director (current charge) of BTCL, could not be reached for comment. Project director Ahmed declined to comment.

AKM Habibur Rahman, managing director of Teletalk and chairperson of the tender evaluation committee, said they had followed all the public procurement rules in evaluating the financial offers.

"The malpractice is obvious in every step of this project. It is surprising that the Anti-Corruption Commission has not taken any action yet," said Abu Saeed Khan, a senior policy fellow at LIRNEasia.