Mongolia Brief September 12, 2014 Part V
‘Street’
project replaces congested traffic circle with 4-way intersection
By M. Zoljargal
September 14
(UB Post) New intersection doubles number of drivers passing per hour
The traffic
circle at Akhui Uilchiglee intersection in the 3rd microdistrict reopened as a
four-way intersection on Thursday to reduce constant traffic congestion. The
intersection was built for 4.5 billion MNT.
Drivers had to
drive around the traffic circle without being able to directly cross the
intersection before. Bus and trolleybus drivers found it particularly
problematic.
“The previous
circle was congested all the time and saw many traffic accidents. I am sure
that the intersection’s congestion will decline remarkably now, especially in
the morning and evening, when business hours start and end,” said a driver who
was waiting for a light to change at the new intersection.
Two heating
pipes under the intersection were relocated and replaced, while a 220 meter
water pipe was given a protective layer. A 1,200 meter water drainage system
was built at the intersection, and overhead trolleybus wires and streetlights
were replaced.
In total,
28,318 square meters were hard-paved, and greenery was planted along 5,547
square meters. Sidewalks and pedestrian spaces now cover 7,565 square meters.
The
intersection wasn’t entirely closed during its construction, as work took place
mostly at night to avoid inconveniences for drivers and residents.
“Now, more than
500 cars pass through the intersection per hour, while the number was 200 per
hour when the traffic circle was not upgraded,” says Colonel B.Batbold, Chief
of the Bayangol District Traffic Police Division.
One last
project left for the intersection is to relocate the memorial to the late
L.Enebish, a prominent state and social figure, which was located inside the
traffic circle.
“We are
grateful to L.Enebish’s grandson E.Munkh-Ochir who approved the demolition of
the park for the upgrade project. The memorial park will reopen in another
location very soon,” explained Naranbulag Khan’s administrators.
New modern
kiosk introduced
The “Street”
project launched a new model of Eco TUT street kiosks at “Love Garden” at the
Western Central Intersection on Thursday.
The kiosk has a
bio-toilet for its salespeople, electric heating and a modern design to
contribute to upgrading of the city’s image.
Street kiosks
located in the city center will all be replaced with the new Eco TUT model.
Vendors and kiosk owners can have professional companies build the kiosks or
build it themselves, as long as they meet all safety and design standards.
The Ministry of
Economic Development is coordinating the “Street” project with financing from
Development Bank.
L.Erdenechuluun:
Inspectors will be reshuffled
September 14
(UB Post) The following is an interview with the Head of the Ulaanbaatar
Specialized Inspection Agency (USIA) L.Erdenechuluun about the USIA’s
operations and other important matters.
You’ve been working as the Head of the USIA
for some time. During this time, what sorts of changes have you made?
I was appointed
to this position four months ago. I’ve accomplished many things during this
period. Our agency carries high responsibilities and is a big family,
consisting of over 570 staff, officials and 16 district branches. We not only
work to provide healthy and safe environment with good quality products and
services for the public but also prioritize on becoming an ethical role model.
For starters,
we made some small changes in the structure and management and established a
Monitoring and Evaluation Department in accordance with the Mongolian
Government Resolution No.311. The USIA demands entities and organizations to
establish internal audits but the USIA didn’t have its own unit for managing
and monitoring operations. We established this department. I made several
reforms for management issues.
Seeing that
staff members and officials are civil servants, I ensured that everyone wore
formal wear and identification cards around their neck, documented their names
and addresses, and placed state official’s oaths and nine values, as well as
the USIA’s logo at each office and room.
The main brain
of an organization is the office. It has to have adequate management and
regulation. Therefore, I reformed board meetings, council and meeting
procedures, and issued some organizational alterations.
Newly appointed directors recruit new staff
and replace or dismiss old members to build their own team. What sorts of
arrangements did you make?
Team building
is forming a responsible, reliable, competitive and competent team, and
operating based on team management. Instead of forming a team with
external non-staff members, I prefer utilizing internal resources. Government
work depends greatly on individuals. Reengineering system needs to be
introduced [to Mongolia] for developing human resource policy and requirements
even further. We’re making plans for this.
What was the USIA’s condition when you
first received your job?
It’s important
to resolve working conditions and social issues prior to demanding work results
from staff and officials. The agency didn’t have sufficient amount of
computers, technical equipment and workplaces. Some 170 employees out of 570
employees didn’t have their own computer or desk. When an inspector went out
for an inspection, another would use their computer.
Firstly, every
room in the office was refurnished. An organization’s work achievement is
defined by individual development approaches. Unless you provide adequate
working conditions, people will not work. Lashing out at employees and
demanding results is not be productive. I’m not a person who only speaks about
money to develop an organization. Some directors say that work doesn’t progress
without money. More than money, if there’s will and motivation, we can
accomplish any work together. Before getting funds, a competent management and
team should be formulated. I think that our agency was able to make a good
start in this area.
There are many suspicions about the USIA
inspectors, regarding bribery and corruption. Have you witnessed such
occurrences?
Truthfully, I
don’t have any firsthand information or evidence of these suspicions. I can’t
completely deny the existence of these actions. We receive many complaints from
the public, entities and organizations that the USIA only inspects at their own
convenience, views and orders. This type of discussion is spread widely within
society.
In the sense
that some organizations such as the Independent Authority Against Corruption
operate independently from the USIA, these organizations extend their powers
and set high salaries. Similarly, I think that the USIA should increase its
powers and increase employee wages. Along with this, accountability system will
become stricter.
Although organizations claim to be open to
the public about their work, some actually aren’t transparent at all. How does
the USIA focus on this area?
For ensuring
transparency and open system about our operations to the public, we report
about issues discussed at board meetings and irregular meeting, and its
procedures via the press. We disclose information about inspections, detected
violations and measures taken every week through press conferences. We also
renewed our website and made all of our decisions and orders open to the
public. Since especially money related issues arise many suspicions, we keep
our financial documents and daily works open and accessible. Inspection
outcomes used to be discussed privately but now the board meeting minutes are
disclosed to the media. We started exchanging practices by holding online
meetings.
Additionally,
district inspection agencies are working efficiently. At the moment, heads of
district inspection agencies have the same authority as department heads. I’m
planning to give them more power and authority starting early 2015. People will
get the capacity to work efficiently if they have authority and power. I assume
work quality of both the district branches and the USIA will improve if salary
and financial operations of branches in nine districts are transferred to their
respective branch.
Recently, we
evaluated our first half year work and encouraged branch heads. The Specialized
Inspection Agency (SIA) is generous with its rewards. If one can do their work,
they must receive what they deserve. This also affects people’s productivity.
From the first half work assessment, while some people detected violations and
sent recommendations, some people didn’t conduct a single inspection or issue a
decree and still received salary. I made this information transparent and
currently discussing accountability. If someone is getting paid by the state,
they should do consistent amount of work.
Lately, there’ve been many accidents at
construction sites. People are criticizing the SIA for not inspecting this
issue. What is the USIA doing to resolve this?
Many
construction related issues are coming up during this time of development and
infrastructure construction. Rather than after [accident] measures, the USIA is
taking precautionary, consultation and assistance measures at the construction
sector. For example, since my appointment, I had the General Agency for
Specialized Inspection sort out school bus issues, organized onsite training
for construction workers under the subject “As a worker, you have the right to
be provided with favorable working conditions”, and gave professional and
technical advices. Currently, 1,635 workers of 82 entities of the construction
sector received training.
The USIA
doesn’t work for 24 hours a day, like emergency services and the police. When
an accident happens at night, we have to work immediately after getting a
notice. For this, we recently established an emergency team. This team
will work for 24 to 48 hours. We organized and scheduled state inspectors into
this team. Everything, including who and how things will be handled when a
notice is given, is determined and clear. Inspectors will provide services on
call.
I made some
reforms in the auto car park of the agency. Every car of the USIA was repaired,
given license plates and included in the license restriction. Especially since
we started receiving more complaints and inspection work, the agency is low on
cars. I submitted requests and proposals to associate organization about this
matter.
How are operations progressing in general?
The USIA does
scheduled and non-scheduled inspection at 28 areas within the capital city.
Inspections must be truthful, practical and efficient. State inspectors have to
stimulate inspection work, take measures to eliminate conflicts and give
warnings, precautions and information about inspections to the public. The USIA
reshuffled its employees just recently. Employees of the SIA should be
reshuffled every three years. We completed the reshuffling of inspectors
working in one place or a district for a long time. This will not hinder
inspection works and resolve the issues of inspecting an acquaintance’s entity.
The USIA aims
to conduct inspections truthfully and efficiently, and provide residents with
quick, efficient and transparent services. We’re keeping stable cooperation
with the media about these issues.
Source:
http://mongolne`ws.mn/1aml
Mongolia
welcomes back world champion S.Tserenchimed
By M. Zoljargal
September 14
(UB Post) The Mongolian national team of female freestyle wrestlers arrived at
Chinggis Khaan International Airport on Saturday night after competing at the
World Wrestling Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
O.Amartuvshin,
vice president of the Mongolian Wrestling Federation (MWF), G.Usukhbayar, vice
president of Aldar Sports Committee and Ts.Khosbayar, State Honored Athlete, as
well as families and friends of the team welcomed the athletes.
Upon arrival,
the newly crowned world champion, S.Tserenchimed, said, “I’m happy that I won
the world championship title with four victories, but at the same time, I feel
like I have a lot more responsibilities now. My intensive training in Japan
prior to the World Championships helped me adapt to managing overloads and
trained me for showing everything I have. I will keep trying my best in the
future.”
Both women’s
and men’s national teams of Mongolia ranked sixth in the championships. It was
the men’s team’s first time making the top six out of 60 countries in the past
27 years, while the women’s team ranked sixth out of 46 countries.
“Our team of
female wrestlers showed promising achievements in the World Championships this
year. A Mongolian wrestler was crowned champion for the first time in four
years and State Honored Athlete O.Burmaa won her third World Championships
medal,” said a MWF spokesperson.
The athletes
brought two medals from the championships for the first time since 1985.
The Japanese
women’s team topped the rank with 55 points, while the Russian team ranked
second with 48 points, followed by the United States team with 41 points.
Both teams of
Mongolia qualified to the 2015 World Wrestling Championships.
Minister
underlines folk storytelling at King Epic Palace opening
September 14
(UB Post) Minister of Culture Ts.Oyungerel underlined the importance of
traditional story telling at the launch ceremony of King Epic Palace, which
took place in Bogdkhaan Palace Museum on Thursday.
“King Epic
Palace will help to preserve the traditions and promote folklores. The opening
of this palace is a big contribution to the implementation of the government
action plan on the development of Mongolian epics’ Arts,” said Minister
Ts.Oyungerel, during the opening.
“I asked from
storytellers what I need to do to establish an epics palace, during a meeting
in provinces. They said, ‘We need a Mongolian ger. From an ancient time,
traditional storytellers told stories in gers. An apartment doesn’t suit
storytelling.’ The blueprint was made a year ago. Bogdkhaan Palace Museum took
responsible for musical instruments.”
The opening
event of the palace was co-organized by the Department of Cultural Heritage at
the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Center for Cultural Heritage
and administration of Bogdkhaan Palace Museum.
The officials
said that more than 50 million MNT was spent on King Epic Palace’s decorations
and to purchase musical instruments.
Minister
Ts.Oyungerel, head of the Department of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism Ts.Tsendsuren, director of the Center for Cultural
Heritage G.Enkhbat, and traditional storytellers, throat singers and
administrators of art organizations took part in the event.
State
morinkhuur player Ts.Tserendorj recited a traditional blessing poem at the
opening ceremony and played morinkhuur.
“Preparation
work to establish King Epic Palace started a year ago. Folk storytellers and
tsuur (Mongolian traditional instrumental) players have prepared for six years…
Mongolian epics is a tradition of tale telling about protecting the mother
earth, the ways of living in harmony with nature, patriotism, families and nation’s
historic pride, and of better upbringing of the younger generations,” said
Minister Ts.Oyungerel.
Officials noted
that audio and video records and manuscripts related to Mongolian epics will be
collected at the palace.
Necessary
steps and deficiency in governance
September 14
(UB Post) Mongolia recently hosted high-level visits from our two neighboring
countries. In terms of significance and timing, there was a lot to swallow and
digest as the presidents of Mongolia’s eternal neighbors visited us with a
short window of time between the two visits.
President Xi
Jinping’s visit and the speech he gave will be important in addressing the lack
of trust that has defined Sino-Mongolian relations. Transit transport access
and the use of China’s seaports were made available to Mongolia. The agreements
on power and infrastructure can potentially bring a huge boost to economic
cooperation between the two countries. Please refer to the article “Seeing the
moonlight from a waterfront pavilion” to read about what Mongolia should bear
in mind after this historic visit.
President
Putin’s half-day visit and the speech he gave will be important in removing the
lack of understanding that has defined Russian-Mongolian relations. Resolving
long-awaited issues such as restoring visa-free travel, adding another track to
the railway, and introducing a railway electrification system will supposedly
bring quality improvements to both economies and trade turnover between
Mongolia and Russia. Please refer to the article titled “Mr Putin, tear down
the glass wall” to read about where the lack of understanding comes from.
The major
challenge after the two high-level visits is whether our government can
implement everything that what was discussed and agreed upon. The governments
of our two neighbors are steady, high-performing institutions with strong,
focused leadership. The institution of our government can be described as
low-performing and less efficient because the institutional structure is
completely changed and entire government staff is almost fully replaced every
four years after parliamentary elections.
As the
structure of our government and management system are changed for the interests
of political parties rather than national interests, it has become nearly
impossible to devise Mongolia’s long-term development policy and implement the
mid- and short-term actions that have been planned. It can be seen from the
speech Prime Minister Altankhuyag gave two days ago. He said, “Today I would
like to announce that I am planning a reshuffling of the cabinet and will
propose it to the parliament in the fall session, in order to make the ‘reform’
government more efficient, diligent, responsible, and energetic. The reshuffle
will include some ministers and a change to the structure of the government.”
There really is a deficiency of governance in Mongolia. The recurrent economic
declines in Mongolia have political roots and are caused by faults in policy.
Considering the
current situation of the executive branch, it is clear that the Prime Minister
has no other choice. It looks like he is proposing the reshuffle before the
parliament did. However, when “making the government more efficient, diligent,
and responsible”, it will not be enough to make slight changes to the structure
of the cabinet. The root cause of Mongolia’s deficiency of governance is
political party funding and campaign finance being unknown, not only to the
public but also to the regular members of political parties. It is no secret
that the individuals and companies that provide political parties with their
funding are the ones who order what policy should come from Mongolia’s
government, while purchasing state seats and positions. Listing political parties
by the weighted number of votes they’ve received and using the public budget to
finance political parties that have seats in the parliament will actually have
fewer costs for Mongolians and be less expensive compared to the funds that are
currently being lost to corruption. This is the first step. If the first step
is made, it will be easier to truly separate the legislative and executive
branches (which has been talked about for many years without any action) and
ensure the transition from “double deel” to “single deel” policy in government.
If they start wearing single deels, the current corruption, the biggest
roadblock in our way forward, will be considerably reduced. Another step is to
prioritize private companies in the selection of companies working on many big
projects that have been agreed upon with Russia and China. If a state-owned
company is to be involved, it should be explicitly stated that they should be
made share-holding companies beforehand.
The biggest
weakness of Mongolia’s public governance is that government institutions are
not capable of strengthening as an institution and producing efficient
performance results. The shortcut to making those institutions stronger and
more professional is to seek assistance from our “third neighbors”. Our
ministries and agencies should strongly establish their structure using
international standards, while laws should be made so that the structure cannot
be changed so frequently. Also, it ought to be ensured that ministries and
agencies align their operations in the most efficient way. Otherwise, we will
never overcome this governance deficiency. Countries such as Indonesia,
Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore have significantly increased the
efficiency of their governance using the same approach. Mongolia needs laws
that define the scope of work for the role of a minister. The ministers need to
be technocrats who have foreign language skills, proper education and
knowledge. If the huge projects agreed upon with our two neighbors start before
these measures are taken, the current conflicts of interest will only deepen
and it will become more difficult to resolve them. Ultimately, it will
negatively affect our relations with China and Russia.
Trans. by
B.AMAR
Link to
article
Comments
Post a Comment