CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE STATE GREAT KHURAL VISITED CIVIL SERVICE COUNCIL AND THE ETHICS COMMITTEE OF MONGOLIA

CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE STATE GREAT KHURAL VISITED CIVIL SERVICE COUNCIL AND THE ETHICS COMMITTEE OF MONGOLIA

In terms of adjournment of the Parliament regular session, Mr. D.Amarbayasgalan, Chairman of the State Great Khural visited relevant organizations for the review of their function process. Today (2024.09.05) he visited Civil service council and Ethics Committee accompanying Mr. J.Bat-Erdene, Head of the Standing Committee on State Structure and Mr. B.Bayarbaatar, Head of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Disciplines.  

Ms. L.Tsedevsuren, Chairwoman of the Civil service council, presented about the function of the council. In accordance with final census of 2023, a total of 226496 civil servants worked in 4239 public organizations. As of 30 June 2024, 229,621 employees work in 4,267 organizations, which is 6.8 percent of the population and 17.9 percent of the workforce.

Main reason of the increased number of the civil servants is establishment of new branch of lifelong learning centers and health centers throughout the country due to the population growth and procurement office in every province as well.

Also, she stressed about the length of service of civil servants in the government, the number of civil servants who have been working for 0-5 years is high in every category of civil service, 39% of all civil servants have been working for 0-5 years, and 18.6% have been working for 6-10 years, which leads to weak management of stable and productive work.

As of the first half of 2024, the resource utilization for the civil service general examination is 37.2 percent which is considered as crucial issue.

The share of female employees in the civil service was 61.7 percent in 2020 and 63.6 percent in 2024, an increase of 2.1 percent.  It is noted that the possibility not to fulfilling the legal provision of "providing a ratio of 40:60 in case of a clear predominance of one gender among all servants" may arise.

With regard to the presentation of Civil service council, Chairman and members exchanges their views and raised questions. Accordingly, council and committee members replied and shared their opinions.  

At his speech, Mr. Chairman of the State Great Khural, noted "It is time to take concrete steps in the reform of the civil service. Mongolian civil service needs to be re-engineered. A working group was established in the Parliament to make legal amendments to the Civil Service Law and other related laws. The State Great Khural will start the reform to sort out the issues that have caused criticism in the public service.

The 126-member of the State Great Khural, established as a result of the 2024 election, has set the goal of "Triple perfection" of the law and legal environment for coming four years. "We will change the laws that are meant for leaders, not citizens, create a people-centered law and legal environment that respects human rights, and eliminate the time gaps."

Mr. B.Bayarbaatar, Head of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Disciplines highlighted “ It is necessary to pay attention not only to civil servants, but also to the morals of the general public, and efforts to enlightenment. Emphasizing that it is impossible to fight corruption, reduce bureaucracy, enforce and implement laws without talking about morals and ethics, Mr. S. Zulphar, a Member of the State Great Khural, said that it is better to talk about the issue of proper or smart structure rather than saying that the government is big and the civil service should be small.

Several participants mentioned the need for public servants, especially political servants, to show responsible and ethical leadership and work in accordance with the laws. On this occasion, it was mentioned that the reform of the civil service is negatively affected and slowed down by other legal drafting, weak harmonization, the length of the Government office term, structural changes, illegal appointments, and the instability of human resources.

Within the framework of its duties stipulated in the civil service legislation, the Civil Service Council conducted planned and unplanned inspection involving 20,596 public administrations employees /as duplicated/ of 1,202 organizations in 2019-2024.

2,000 inconsistent appointments have been identified nationwide through the inspection, and as a result of tasking with a deadline to eliminate the violations, 1,623 appointments have been removed, 209 decisions have been annulled by the Civil Service Council, and 45 decisions have been temporarily suspended and are being resolved by the court.

In the Law on Civil service states as “upon the general authority in charge of public service or the court determines that a citizen, or a public servant other than a political servant, has been illegally appointed, released, temporarily released, or fired from the public service, the loss caused to the state shall be compensated by the guilty who made the decision”.

In accordance with this regulation, the Civil service council made registration of the compensation from 2019 to 2024 as demand of MNT 4,050,744,594 was delivered to the official who made the wrong decision. After the expiration of the requirement period, a claim of 3,546,718,755 MNT was submitted to the court, and a court decision of 981,753,510 MNT was issued.

As of August 2024, total of MNT471.3 million was placed in the state budget since MNT 776.4 million was reimbursed by relevant officials and individuals in the past. The principle of protecting the rights and legal interests of civil servants and the independence of the civil service from politics has been implemented, the incentives for economic accountability have been achieved, the process of illegal human resources decision-making has decreased, and law enforcement has improved.