Joint statement released two weeks ago by the Government of Mongolia with “Rio Tinto” and “Ivanhoe Mines” let the Mongolian citizens know the bitter truth that we have a politically and ethically dysfunctional government. Unable to implement its statement on the current foreign investment project in the country, the Mongolian government suddenly denied its own announcement.
The denial of such an important statement not only shows the lack of capacity of the government as an institution but also harms the reputation of Mongolian government, and made Mongolian to lose face. Even though many changes should be made in the Oyu Tolgoi agreement at right times and conditions, now is not the time to do so and a different government should be the one who will be making those changes.
Financial Times (page 9, October 9, 2011) reported that Mongolia dropped the attempt to renegotiate its agreement with “Rio”. Furthermore, the newspaper said that “Rio” had been under pressure to increase not only the tax they pay the government but also the government share in iron deposit in Guinea and copper deposit in Mongolia. Mongolian government’s position on the agreement changed within last two weeks ago and people were left clueless about what happened. All we know is that the coalition government, who has regarded the signing of Oyu Tolgoi agreement as its biggest achievement, actually demanded changes in the contract they signed. As it is a big, significant statement by the coalition government, both parties must have discussed it together earlier. However, all of a sudden in a week after releasing the statement, the President of Mongolia, the Prime Minister, the Parliament Speaker and leaders of the ruling parties announced that, because of a great mutual understanding with the investor party, they were no longer demanding changes to the agreement when there is a recession treat in the world economy and copper price is about to fall.
After acting like they had never talked about making changes to the agreement, Mongolian government once again released a joint statement with a company “ensuring” everyone that there would not happen anything like this again. The ruling parties have to be responsible for this “on and off” behavior of the government. Some of the parliament members are forgetting that they are responsible for their own party’s decision and are walking hand in hand with other party members singing “We are the people’s delegation”. All the parliament members except the only independent MP Z.Altai do not understand that they are members of a party as well as a part of his party’s administration. Since one has not been elected independently, one’s decision is the party’s decision he belongs to. Even though one has a different opinion, he should keep it to himself until a law is passed and, once the law is passed, one must obey it and demand the others to do the same. If a parliament member does not obey a law, who would obey it? Making law then would be a waste of time and money. Therefore, parliament members should quit their parties first if they want to pursue their personal interests only.
Parliament members, in particular those who are also cabinet members must not be politically “on and off”. This indecisiveness proves that a party is immature as a political institution. Our parliament members have always understood that anyone can make changes to law whenever they want. That would the reason why there is budget amendment, where expense is increased when income is good, yet there already is the law on budget approved already. After a long time of silence, during which parliament members provided themselves with MNT 1 billion each and erected a palace for their party with tax payers’ money, they are now willing to do anything as the election is coming up. While the Oyu Tolgoi agreement was being discussed, various political movements demanded to increase Mongolian share up to at least 50%. Politicians who ignored people’s demands at that time and regarded the signing of the agreement as a big achievement are now demanding changes to the agreement. This is ethical “on and off”.
If they are doing so just because of demands for their resignations, it turns out that the agreement is cheaper than those people’s position. Seeing the instability and “on and off” behavior” of our political leaders in just few days makes us think again about who we have chosen to entrust our country’s future.
There is already a trend where a part of our parliament passes laws and the other part works against the law’s implementation and demands for reallocation of authority. A clear example is the fate of “long-name” law and this above mentioned investment agreement. The ultimate purpose of Mongolia is not to encourage and feed those incompetent political parties without leadership with fancy names and its incapable members in the parliament, but to foster the well-being of every Mongolian family. “On and off” politics will not be over by this. There are still a lot to happen till the election. The changes to Oyu Tolgoi agreement are just the beginning of the show.
Ulaanbaatar – Hong-Kong
Translated by B. Amar