In his address at the spring session of the parliament, President Battulga announced that half of the people were living in poverty, public funds were not reaching the intended recipients, and that the IAAC (Independent Authority Against Corruption) leadership would be replaced because big corruption cases were not being resolved. Shortly after this speech, the President’s Chief of Staff, Z. Enkhbold, announced that the nominations for Commissioner-General and Deputy Commissioner of the IAAC would be made through a public vote and submitted to the President.
It seems like the leadership of the IAAC, which is mandated to investigate crimes of corruption, is a position that causes misfortune to those who have been appointed regardless of who they are.The first ever Commissioner-General B. Dangaasuren passed away abroad, his successor Ch. Sangaragchaa ended up in prison, N. Ganbold, the third person in the post, submitted his own resignation, and the fourth General-Commissioner Kh. Enkhjargal is now about to be stripped of his position by the President because he arrested too many people, including two former Prime Ministers, to allegedly look like he is doing his job.
Appointing a foreigner to the post would drastically decrease corruption in Mongolia and stop people from using their position for personal gains. In the 1970s, Hong Kong appointed a British person as the lead commissioner to fight triads, and has more recently appointed two women from Britain and Canada as permanent judges of the Court of Final Appeal.
The next IAAC leadership, regardless of who they will be, must carry out these three tasks without losing time:
1. Shaking the political parties out of their invulnerability
Mongolians have been fighting for 28 years to enable our democracy to flourish and 22 years to prevail over corruption. The law against corruption was first enacted in 1996, and a national program to fight corruption was issued in 2002. The United States Convention against Corruption was established in 2003. Mongolia joined the convention in 2005 with parliamentary ratification, and amended the law against corruption in the following year. The IAAC was set up in 2007, and the 2016-2023 national program to fight corruption, the second of its kind, was passed in 2016. But, it begs the question: why is corruption expanding when laws and regulations are growing exponentially?
Although the IAAC investigates cases and develops sentences, most of the proposed punishments are rendered invalid by the court, and those that were successfully prosecuted and convicted would be pardoned by the President later on. How can this be explained?
Chapter 2 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption states that parties to the convention shall ensure the existence of a body or bodies to prevent corruption and ensure transparency of political party financing and election campaign funding. Mongolia established the IAAC in line with the first direction in 2007, but has always been politicizing its leadership ever since. However, Mongolia has been ignoring the other direction and has been reluctant to bring transparency to political party financing. There is a plan on paper to start this work in 2018.
So, as a result of continued non-disclosure of political party financing, which has become the source of Mongolia’s corruption, our government has sunk into debt and corruption while people in the private sector become poorer and those who work in government get wealthier. In addition, our income inequality has been growing bigger and bigger. The political parties who have been leading the government in turns have spent too many years in an invulnerable position and immune from public oversight and scrutiny. The politicians can no longer spot the elephant in the room.
Regardless of who will be the new commissioner, people expect the new IAAC leadership to start their work from making political parties publicly disclose their financing, election funding, and audit reports, and hold those who break the law accountable.
2. Recovering lost assets
Chapter 5 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption is dedicated to asset recovery, which encouraged a lot of developing nations to become a party to the convention. Corruption and bribery are common in countries with less experience in public governance, less advanced legislation, and less capability of ensuring the rule of law. So they often end up not being able to recover lost assets even after holding those who stole from public funds accountable under law.
Today Mongolia has become a classic example and continues finding ways to let criminals who stole from public funds off the hook, let alone making anyone recompense the assets they stole. Despite the initial noise, large corruption cases usually get forgotten by another round of news, drag on for years in the courtroom, are sent back to investigation, or are appealed. In short, any punishment has become symbolic as the culprits are let off. Even when a large group embezzled a huge amount of public funds, only one person receives punishment on behalf of the others and spends a few years in prison before being eventually pardoned. Mongolian courts have been maintaining their weak attitude towards asset recovery and making those who are responsible pay for what has been lost. It has become common to see those who received jail time or punishment on corruption charges to come back to public service posing like a hero who was wrongfully convicted.
Mongolian law enforcement, including judiciary and police, lack knowledge and experience in retrieving money and assets illegally moved out of the country and turned into real estate. The pace of the outside world requires us to sign agreements with certain countries to provide legal assistance to each other over these matters. Justice starts with recovering what was lost, not with putting the responsible people in prison. For example, Georgia has a track record of carrying out successful asset recovery.
China implemented a program called ‘Fox Hunt’ to fight corruption and recovered lost assets. Since 2004, they have brought back 2,020 economic criminals (including 342 who worked for government) from 70 different countries and recovered assets worth 1.14 billion USD.
3. Setting new social norms
Scholars note that the Scandinavian countries, which have low levels of corruption, have shaped the public mentality in a way that doesn’t allow the growth of corruption. Furthermore, their social norms have created an environment that does not allow corruption to set in. Those norms include moderation, self-control, and a sense of common good in people.
Our shared assets have been embezzled, and our public land, including mountain passes, river banks, and recreational parks, continues to shrink in size because they have been putting up fences and erecting buildings illegally. It is all happening under our nose and in front of our eyes, but there has not been any public resistance. Government positions are being allocated to individuals based on their connections instead of merits, and those were appointed in that fashion are stealing from public funds. However, our society has not put up any meaningful resistance. Some people now have a new dream to obtain political party membership and make a living by embezzling from public funds. Mongolia is currently seeing corruption set in as a new social norm – a part of our social culture. In contrast, the people of Romania and Armenia have mustered a strong resistance against corruption and have been very vocal in their demands.
Regardless of who will be the new Commissioner-General to lead the IAAC, the aforementioned three tasks must be carried out with a broad scope nationwide. Otherwise, we will not be able to break free from the chains of corruption that have manifested themselves through unemployment and poverty and which have been setting us back from development and prosperity. Are we going to let our children inherit corruption from us?
2018.05.09
Trans. by B.Amar