MP GIVES DETAILS ABOUT OYU TOLGOI

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A member of parliament Ms G.Uyanga presented on November 11 results of recent studies on Oyu Tolgoi LLC staff salaries and conclusions of the inspection of Oyu Tolgoi project’s investment expenditure. The inspection was made by a working group that was set up at order of Deputy PM and Ministers of Mining and of Finance last year, she noted and reminded the media that she asked the cabinet this October 13 to sound an outcome of its discussion of reports by the above working group, to explain why the expenditure report has been include in a list of secret matters, and why 2,724 million USD, reflected in the Shareholders’ Agreement, has increased to 5.1 billion. “The inquiry should have been responded within two weeks, but I have not received any answers, the Minister Ch.Saikhanbileg has postponed the response until this November 18,” she said. A study by Project Management Institute on wages of over 30 thousand project managers from 29 countries show that an average annual salary of Oyu Tolgoi project managers amounted to USD 92 thousand in 2011, which is 2.8 times higher than that of other managers. Moreover, salaries of Mongolian and of foreign personnel, hired for underground mine works by Red Path LLC, varies within a big margin, for instance, the Mongolian welder receives some 71 thous.Togrog per day, while his foreign counterpart--1.8 million, which shows ratio of 25:1, she said. Another violation was inspected that a “Fluor”-named company, which has nothing to do with the OT project, receives big money transfer from the project, “I will give details about it later”. Since the commencement of OT project, some USD 214.4 million (MNT 400 billion and 928 million) went for business trips of Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines groups, apartment rents of foreign personnel of the project, their health services, their gifts to others and donations, she informed. “Petrovis LLC has been supplying expensive fuel to OT project in a monopolist manner since 2007, and receives 20-50 million Togrog every month for so-called salaries of personnel and their insurances,” she went on. Thirty four percent of all of the above costs are paid by the Mongolian taxpayers with high interests, she stressed. Petrovis LLC should be investigated by Corruption Combating Agency and other related monitoring organizations, she underlined.