Grameenphone, Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone service provider, will be audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (News - Alert) over allegations of illegal international call termination, according to an announcement made today as part of a briefing to celebrate, ironically enough, GP’s eleventh anniversary.

 

“Everything will be in order so that we can move on, as PricewaterhouseCoopers has started discharging its duty of auditing into the GP’s VoIP issue,” said GP CEO Anders Jensen. “Whatever was wrong in history, we have taken responsibility for that to make sure we will not do anything wrong in the future.”

 

In January, ten officials of GP, including two former CEOs, were sued and fined by the Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) for illegal involvement in VoIP business. The company is planning to go public, with an IPO by the third quarter of 2008, but Jensen admits that this all depends on the decision of the company’s shareholders, which will no doubt be influenced by the audit’s findings.

 

Despite GP’s subscriber total reaching 17.2 million as of last month, the company is facing increasingly heated competition from five other major providers in Bangladesh. Providers DiGi Telecommunications and AccessTel also stand accused of illegal international call termination.

 

The two accused former CEOs departed GP in 2004 and 2007. The accused individuals also include five officials still employed with GP, as well as three other former employees, one of whom was the CTO.

 

The issue began in December of last year, when an eight-day long raid on the GP main offices uncovered large amounts of equipment related to illegal VoIP.