The withdrawal came at an extraordinary cabinet sitting on Friday morning, ikon.mn reported at 12:13 Ulaanbaatar. Ministers handed the Speaker a letter pulling the bill “On resolving pressing issues of social and basic infrastructure”, one of seven bills and three resolutions submitted with the 2027 budget, and the Speaker read Prime Minister N. Uchral’s letter to the chamber. Deputies had finished their first discussion of the package on 22 October and were to vote on Friday on whether to proceed with the bills.
The bill spent money the government expects in 2027. It would have taken ₮2 trillion of the ₮3 trillion dividend expected from Oyu Tolgoi and put ₮400 billion into the 300 MW sixth thermal power plant and ₮508 billion into finishing the heating plants of ten aimags, with 300-bed dormitories in the provinces and other projects named for the remainder, by ikon.mn’s account of the text. The paper described it as one-off in nature.
Mendsaikhan gave the reason at 10:46 Ulaanbaatar. “The government brought in a bill to resolve basic social infrastructure, that is energy and education. But our budget is becoming unrecognisable. In effect the policy the government submitted is being lost,” he said, in ikon.mn’s rendering. Citizens had answered the prime minister’s question on the dividend through e-Mongolia with their digital signatures over 14 days. Some 56,000 of 96,600 respondents chose the Savings Fund. They want the money kept there and spent later on education, health and mortgages, while about 40,000 chose energy infrastructure. “Taking the poll results into account, the government decided to withdraw this law,” the minister said. By CAW’s arithmetic that is 58% against 41%.
A day earlier the prime minister had defended the same bill from the floor. Tax made up 90% of last year’s budget revenue and 80% of the 2027 revenue he submitted, Uchral told the plenary on 22 October, because state companies’ dividends are now consolidated into the budget, and next year brings ₮1.3 trillion of tax relief. Rio Tinto’s chief executive had come and offered to “reconfirm”, he said, and for 17 years nobody had mentioned a dividend at all. “Looking at some members of the Democratic Party, they are galloping off to the far left,” he said, before restating the split, ₮1 trillion to the Savings Fund and ₮2 trillion to energy and basic social needs, and calling the debate “a marathon over who loves the citizens more”.
Some 56,000 of 96,600 respondents chose the Savings Fund.
The Savings Fund the minister named is the destination the poll’s majority picked. On 22 October the Democratic Party’s group leader B. Tüvshin asked whether the ₮3 trillion was a dividend at all, pointing to the absence, in his words, of a board decision, a company announcement and an entry in the accounts, as CAW reported that day. The withdrawal removes the spending plan and leaves his question where it was.
That ₮3 trillion remains the government’s estimate for 2027, consolidated into budget revenue by the prime minister’s own description of 22 October. The two plants the bill named keep their price tags, ₮400 billion and ₮508 billion, and nothing published by Friday morning explained how they will now be financed. The 2027 budget debate continues in the autumn session with the dividend bill gone from the package.
The letter reached the Speaker on the morning the plenary was to vote on the package, with the poll’s count as the stated reason and the budget’s shape as the first.