The telecom regulator yesterday invited tenders from audit firms to carry out financial and technical audits into mobile operators Banglalink and Airtel.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, which has the mandate to perform audit every year, is set to audit Airtel for the first time since it started its operations in the country in 2007. Airtel has recently merged with Robi.

The telecom watchdog will conduct a fresh audit into Banglalink after its previous two attempts went into vain.

The winning firm will have to have an expert IT partner or consultant, according to the tender that was put up on the BTRC website and will also be published in daily newspapers and on the National e-Government Procurement portal.

The deadline for submission of expression of interest is 5pm January 11, 2018. The commission will call for final quotations from seven firms based on initial interests.

The winning firm must have at least a year's experience in telecom or IT sector along with five years of experience in auditing.

The appointed auditor will be liable to find out the actual revenue generated by the company and the calculation procedure used to make payment to the commission for a particular or the whole licensing period and reconcile them with the operator's financial statements and other records.

The firm will also analyse audited financial statements to identify misstatement or manipulation of any facts and examine call logs, network traffic, transmission and access networks, value-added service systems, revenue sharing with the government and tax-related issues among other tasks.

The telecom regulator appointed chartered accountancy firm Toha Khan Zaman & Co in October 2015 to carry out the audit into Grameenphone and Masih Muhith Haque & Co in March 2016 for Robi.

The BTRC gave the auditors 180 days to complete the tasks but both the firms failed to finish it within the timeframe.

Both the audits are at the final stage, said the officials who are related with the process. “All of these audits will help establish check and balance in their systems,” said a senior BTRC official.

State-owned operator Teletalk and out-of-operation Citycell are yet to face any regulatory audit.

In October this year, the BTRC adopted a policy to audit mobile operators every three years to avoid complexities that stemmed from running audit after a long gap.