A country’s development is based on its roads. There is no single developed country that has bad roads, which can only be found in some developing or poor countries. Hundreds of years ago, the Romans realized the importance of good roads and made or improved every road wherever they settled. The roads built by the Romans in the Carpathian Mountains are still in use and are no worse than the new ones. A total of 29 hardy roads of great distances came from Romeand went the distance of the entire continent of Europe. On those roads, they transported goods and military supplies of the Great Empire. There is even a phrase: All roads lead to Rome.
If we look at a country like a human body, roads are the skeletons. Therefore, without roads, it is not even possible to imagine development or welfare.The economy will be integrated with society, only when main roads interconnect regions of a country. A World Bank report said that there is a positive relationship between the time spent to get on a main road and the unemployment rate of a country.
Quality and appearance of roads can also be a mirror that precisely reflects a country’s social and economic development as well as the quality of public governance. If we want to develop our economy tomorrow, roads have to be built today.
Roads in Mongolia
Our roads can tell us that Mongolia is an underdeveloped country. While they are linking the high cost and difficulty of building roads with Mongolia’s small population and vast territory, the rural areas are left undeveloped and most of our population ismoving to cities and towns.Public governance in cities is so bad that urban roads have become worse than rural off-roads, and meanwhile cars jump like grasshoppers because there is no space on the road to go round.
The bumpy roads in our capital city are especially bad and tire you to the limit and remind us how low our public governance level is. People who went to the countryside, provinces and regional centers to see Naadam came back with similar feelings. The low level of public governance means that public property is left unattended and those who are supposed to protect it are able to steal from it.
Although the government has infrastructure including roads built by holding tenders for private sectors, companies that have a close relationships with the decision makers are only selected and poor quality roads are built with half of the project budget. They do it so often that they have become pros in what they do. Road companies have the most number of representatives in the state, city and province administrations.Even though people know that roads express the level of public governance and have become a corruption nest, nothing is done about it. We see no change.
The authorities of the capital city gave away so much land, leaving no space for road extensions or sewage lines and roads hit by rainwater several times do not even last for a year. I wrote about it last week in my article “Capital city: A development hobble.”
Our capital city is living up to its name “hero”during all the seasons. Ulaanbaatar (Redhero) has become Smoghero in winter, Dusthero in spring, Waterhero in summer and Jamhero in autumn. One person tweeted precisely that people are expecting our new mayor, the people’s hero, to defeat those heroes.
Despite this, there have been many draft legislations on the regulation of land ownership and use. Members of parliament have always passed the laws that benefited them and postponed the ones that did not.
Roads that are interconnecting centers of provinces and are connecting them to the capital city must belong to the state;thus, those roads have to meet every standard set by the state. Certain laws on how much space to leave on the sides, what infrastructure to be built and the possibility of road extensions must exist. If we have a look at the road from Ulaanbaatar to Nalaikh, fences are built along the road leaving no space for extensions because land was given irresponsibly. Apparently, there are no such laws. Even though there is a decree or two, land officials do not care about it. What laws, what rules and what standards? As long as their wallets get thicker, they can sell anything.
A general standard for roads in centers of provinces and interconnecting soums needs to be introduced as well. Let us not talk about luxuries such as roads signs that indicatedirection and length of a road. You should not even leave the town unless you have a local man who knows his way or has a GPS.
Land for public use
Many countries practice a law that allows the government to have the privilege to acquire land owned by an individual for a public purpose such as building roads for public use or constructing public buildings.
The Land Acquisition Act of Australia states that, when the government buys land for public purpose, landowners are compensated after experts come up with a market value assessment of the property. If payments are not made in time, interest is paid just like a mortgage loan.In a country with good governance, this relationship is regulated not by decrees, but by laws and always enforced the law.
Although our Mayor issued a decree to free the Juulchny street area in front of “Urt Tsagaan,” road construction came to halt because people who rent tents to sell their items are refusing to leave. Nonetheless, it is said that the actual owners have permission to build tents there and they may rent them. Easy income, isn’t it?
Who comes up with the city planning, where they suddenly decide to build roads after making it a street for tourists? This is the reality of urban planning and land use in the capital city.
Even though there has been a proposal to reserve land for the special purpose of constructing large industrial complexes and civic engineering facilities,there is no information about the implementation or whether companies associated with the administration at that time have taken the land or not.
When it was decidedby the parliament in May 2008 to build an international airport in the Khushigt Valley, Tuv Province, it is said that all land surrounding the planned airport and roads linking the airport to Ulaanbaatar are just given to individuals.
Governors of provinces and soums have to release a statement or give certain information concerning that. If land was given after the official decision to build an airport, especially if individuals or companies are closely associated with the authorities, the land must be able to be retrieved. This is because it is a total conflict of interests. It’s a case of using unfair advantages from of aposition power and information.
The Law of Mongolia on Land states that the government can take public land back by giving compensation for removing land in possession. Freeing ger districts for building apartments and building roads has become the most difficult problem in today’s Ulaanbaatar. This needs to be resolved by a new law, not a decree.
When Oyu tolgoi, Tavan tolgoi, Sainshand and other places come into economic circulation, there will be a need to build infrastructure that fits urbanization. Therefore, if we do not start setting standards and principles to regulate land issues now, it looks like the local soums officials would conspire and sell all the land.
Roads interconnecting regions play the most important role in developing local businesses and industrial clusters.Decreasing time and cost of supply is the main factor that helps create specialized industrial areas.
Expectation
Mongolians residing in every corner of our vast territory are waiting for their new representatives to take their seats where they will make big decisions to understand the importance of roads and make precise, right and timely decisions.
Mongolians are also hoping that the new representatives will put public interest before their personal interest this time.
2012.08.01