3,387.17
MPs faulted several provisionsin the Government’s draft proposals on employing foreign labor and their wages
as Parliament discussed them on Friday. N.Batbayar questioned the need for
importing labor when “there are 140,000 unemployed people in Mongolia and
200,000 citizens are working abroad because there is no work at home”. He told the Social Welfare and Labor
Minister, Ms. T.Gandhi, “Mongolian citizens cannot be denied a job in Mongolia because
they do not know English. You should go back to journalism and not work as a minister.”
His impression was that the Government’s policy was to hand over Mongolia to the
Chinese and wondered why the Prime Minister, whose father is from Arkhangai aimag
and mother from Sukhbaatar, should favor this. The Prime Minister retorted that
there was nothing against national interests in the law and asserted that his
origin and birthplace had no relevance in a political debate.
Minister Gandhi explained the Government’s position.
Later, Batbayar told journalists that he was opposed to the draft as it sought to
open up mining to foreign workers beyond the quota fixed at present. The present
practice that an employer has to pay a fee for every worker employed over and
above the quota should be retained and this money should be allocated to the
local education and health fund in the mining area.
