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State to pay salaries for ‘Dream Team’ behind Kharkhorum City www.ubpost.mn
In recent years, our government has established numerous special administrative units with dozens of staff members—not to implement actual projects, but merely to prepare for them. These units often serve as landing spots for political affiliates and party loyalists, who are appointed as directors and managers, enjoying the privileges of power while draining public funds. This has become a persistent trend.
Under the guise of advancing infrastructure and development projects, countless such administrations have been created and later dissolved—too many to even count. One recent example is the Pre-Operations Administration for the Aerial Cable Transportation System, which was established with over 20 personnel specifically for a single public transportation project in Ulaanbaatar City. Despite the project only covering one route, the administration was funded by the state budget for 1.5 years before being quietly disbanded.
Now, under the pretext of building new cities, even more elaborate and extensive teams are being formed. This “dream team” approach involves appointing governors and managers before a single brick is laid, and before any real progress is made. These officials are shuffled in and out, their organizational structures regularly reconfigured and expanded as if that alone were progress.
Most recently, in August 2021, the government established the “Administration for Development in the Khushigt Valley” for the proposed New Zuunmod and Maidar cities. In February 2023, it created another agency or administration for the development of the planned New Kharkhorum City. Now, the administration for this city is set to be replaced by an even larger and more complex entity known as the “Governor’s Office of the New Kharkhorum”.
Appointing management teams and staffing administrative offices for cities that exist only on paper—projects that haven’t even begun—is an extravagant and reckless misuse of public resources. Spending state funds to pay salaries for nearly 70 people involved in a dream project is not only premature but borders on absurdity. Let’s dive deeper into this issue below.
Initial administration established with 30 staff
The “Administration Responsible for the Development of the New Kharkhorum City” was initially formed with a staff of 30. By the end of 2024, it had 27 employees. The structure consisted of a director and a general manager overseeing three departments: Administration and Finance, Urban Planning, and Investment and Cooperation. These staff members operated under this structure for over two years.
During that period, the administration had two directors. The first was Ulaanbaatar’s Chief Architect N.Natsagdorj. In March, he was replaced by former Deputy Minister of Road and Transportation Development L.Khaltar.
Officials justified the creation of the administration by stating that it was necessary to establish a centralized body to coordinate and manage the planning, legal framework, infrastructure, and investment environment needed to build the new city. However, when evaluating whether the administration fulfilled this mandate—or whether the public funds spent on salaries and operational costs contributed to real progress—the results are deeply underwhelming.
To date, there are no tangible achievements to show for their efforts—nothing visible, nothing concrete. If questioned, the administration might respond by pointing to stacks of documents, research, and evaluations. Yet, all of the critical components—such as the general development master plan for Kharkhorum, the environmental impact assessment, the technical and economic feasibility studies for infrastructure, and the road and transportation designs—were outsourced to private companies through public tenders funded by the state. Just these four activities alone received a budget of 3.3 billion MNT.
Even the conceptual framework for the city’s master plan was handed off to “external experts” via an international open tender. So the question remains: What, exactly, have the nearly 30 salaried staff members—hired to oversee the development of the city—accomplished during this time?
3.8 billion MNT allocated this year alone
If there’s one thing the “Administration for the Development of the New Kharkhorum City” has done with remarkable consistency, it’s spending taxpayers’ money with little regard for efficiency or measurable impact. Although the exact salaries paid to senior officials—such as the director, general manager, and various specialists—aren’t publicly itemized, it’s evident that a significant amount has gone toward maintaining this administration.
In addition to base salaries and bonuses, public funds have been used to cover the usual range of government office expenses, including office rentals, supplies, furniture, routine maintenance, business travel, and outsourced services. According to Mongolia’s “Glass Account” transparency system, this administration alone was allocated 3.8 billion MNT this year. A large share of that went to salaries and incentive payments, while the rest was spent on operational costs such as renting office space, purchasing materials and equipment, and hosting official trips and visitors.
To grasp the magnitude of this expenditure: a person earning the national average salary of 1.5 million MNT per month would need to work over five years just to match the amount this administration spent on furnishings and facility upkeep in a single year. That’s a staggering level of indulgence for an entity that has yet to produce any tangible results.
Based on current budget estimates, it’s likely that the administration has consumed somewhere between 7 to 10 billion MNT since its establishment just over two years ago—a conservative estimate by all measures. And this figure is only expected to grow, as the government has recently approved a decision to expand the administration into a larger structure under the name “Governor’s Office of Kharkhorum City”.
Dissolution in name, expansion in reality
On March 19, the government passed Resolution No. 136, which officially approved the structure and staffing of a newly rebranded entity. Under the guise of dissolving the “Administration for the Development of the New Kharkhorum City,” the government instead transferred all its responsibilities, funding, authorities, and personnel to a new, expanded body now called the “Governor’s Office of Kharkhorum City”.
This new entity has been given a staffing cap of 68 positions—more than double the size of its predecessor. Its leadership structure includes four senior roles: the governor, the chief architect, the director of the Governor’s Office, and a general manager. Operationally, the office will consist of three main departments—Administration and Management, Urban Planning and Development Policy, and Public Relations—subdivided into seven divisions.
In effect, this decision didn’t abolish the old administration—it merely changed the name and expanded its structure. The administration continues to operate in the same offices, following the same mandate, only now with the green light to double its personnel. According to insider reports, plans are already underway to fully staff the office up to the new limit, significantly increasing the burden on the state budget.
Yet the city of Kharkhorum remains a dream on paper. No construction has started. No groundbreaking ceremony has taken place. So the question remains: how long will taxpayers continue footing the bill for nearly 70 officials working on a city that doesn’t yet exist?
The government, under Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene, has loudly championed the idea of a lean, efficient civil service. But decisions like this reveal a different face behind the curtain. While the administration claims to prioritize streamlining and performance-based governance, in practice it continues to inflate the bureaucracy—appointing productivity and oversight managers at state-owned enterprises, and now establishing a full-fledged Governor’s Office for a still-imaginary city.
What’s more ironic is that one of the most vocal advocates of downsizing the public sector—Cabinet Chief of Staff N.Uchral—is the very person in charge of forming the Governor’s Office for “Kharkhorum City”. It’s a contradiction that borders on satire.
This pattern exposes how state affairs often unfold: publicly, the rhetoric is all about reform and efficiency, but behind closed doors, bureaucratic bloat continues unchecked. And if this becomes the model, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the government eventually set up similar governor’s offices for each of the 14 satellite cities planned around Ulaanbaatar City, filling them with dozens more political appointees—all before a single foundation is laid.
Published Date:2025-04-18
