Group chair B. Tuvshin set out three positions on the 2027 budget at a press conference in parliament, ikon.mn reported at 12:08 Ulaanbaatar: the deficit, submitted at ₮2.3 trillion against the ₮1.7 trillion the approved projection carried, must come down, spending must stay inside the budget framework statement, which it exceeds by ₮7 trillion, and the Oyu Tolgoi money must go to the Wealth Fund.
On the mine his questions were procedural. “Three trillion tugrik will come in from Oyu Tolgoi. Is this money a dividend? If it is a dividend, will the side that owns 66% receive six trillion tugrik?” he said, in CAW’s translation. Had the mine’s board and executive management taken a decision, had the public been told it was a dividend, and “has it been recorded and reported as a dividend in the financial statements? For now it is not known whether these three trillion tugrik are a dividend or not.”
The arithmetic is the state’s own. Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi holds 34% of the mine and Rio Tinto 66%, so ₮3 trillion paid to the state as a dividend implies about ₮6 trillion to the majority holder and ₮9 trillion in all, roughly $2.5 billion at the Bank of Mongolia’s rate of 20 October. On 20 October the finance minister told the budget standing committee that ₮1 trillion of the ₮3 trillion goes to the accumulation fund under the Wealth Fund law and ₮2 trillion to power plants, as CAW reported.
The group’s position is that the whole ₮3 trillion goes to the Wealth Fund and that it will not support the government’s bill amending the Wealth Fund law. Tuvshin called a thermal power plant an economically efficient project that the state makes loss-making by building it itself, and funding it from Oyu Tolgoi money wrong. Individual members hold other views, he said, concepts and not the group’s line: L. Gantumur would distribute the money to citizens, O. Tsogtgerel would give citizens ownership of the state’s 34%, B. Purevdorj would close the pension gap and Tuvshin himself would put the money into the pension fund.
The arithmetic is the state’s own.
Parliament has the 2027 budget before it with a 15 November deadline. The opposition has now put the dividend question in the form the mine’s shareholders would recognise, a board decision, a public announcement and an entry in the accounts, and by Tuvshin’s account none of the three has been shown.