Source: Unuudur                 Date: 22 April, 2011

Replying to members’ allegations at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Social Policy, Education, Culture, and Science that money in the Employment Support Fund was being misused in a number of ways, Finance Minister S. Byambatsogt, himself a member of the committee, revealed that various measures have been put in place to ensure fraudulent claims for payment were detected early. All District Employment Support Agencies will submit a quarterly report, and people claiming financial aid for attending training in areas which are not in demand will be identified. There have been regular cases of employment providers receiving incentive for creating positions that turned out to be temporary. The people employed were quickly laid off, then new people taken in, and incentives claimed again. The Minister said from now on incentive will be paid only after ascertaining that a position has been held for at least one year by the person newly employed. The MPs urged the Minister to resolve the present anomalous situation where unemployed Mongolians rush overseas while people have to be imported to work at projects in Mongolia. The Minister said this happened because the vocational training institutes in the country did not offer courses in the special skills demanded for the projects coming up and gave an assurance that “this distortion has to be rectified without delay”.