The NGO, based in Berlin, Germany, has over 100 chapters worldwide, including Mongolia. The Secretariat of the NGO urged Kh.Battulga to cease threats to fire the country’s top watchdog.

The president has recently called for the resignation current IAAC Commissioner General Kh.Enkhjargal as the six-year term of his predecessor concludes. Kh.Enkhjargal became the acting Commissioner General, taking over for his predecessor. Even though the current commissioner is slated to serve until 2022, the president argues that since he is an acting commissioner, he must be replaced.

“Mongolia’s poor score on this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) underlines the need to strengthen anti-corruption efforts nationwide, not weaken them,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International. “The CPI should not be used as a bargaining chip by the president to undercut the authority of national, independent anti-corruption agencies.”

The president used Mongolia’s slipping CPI score as one of the reasons to fire and replace the current commissioner.

The NGO underlined in the statement that a well-financed and independent anti-corruption agencies, like the IAAC, can be strong weapons in the fight against corruption. However, these agencies need support from national governments, including the judiciary and law enforcement systems in order to be successful, it stated.

Earlier this year, Transparency International released the 2017 CPI, which scores and ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Mongolia had a score of 36, highlighting the corruption problem in the country.

“The CPI has been criticized in Mongolia as a reflection of the poor performance of the IAAC. However, the CPI is not an adequate tool to measure the performance of any institution in a country, including the IAAC. Instead, the CPI looks at the general perceptions in a country,” the statement by the NGO’s Secretariat read.

According to the NGO, any interference with the proceedings of autonomous anti-corruption agencies could potentially backfire, resulting in additional negative perceptions and even lower CPI scores.