A Road Connecting China and Europe Probed For Corruption

An anti-corruption agency launched a broad investigation against numerous government officials, including a former vice minister for roads and transport who oversaw the expansion of a 202 km road from Ulaanbaatar to Darkhan, Mongolia’s second-largest city.

Some claim corruption occurred at the Ministry of Roads and Transport, with lucrative government road construction contracts favoring Chinese contractors.

The Ulaanbaatar-Darkhan highway is part of the route that connects China and Europe, and it is critical to Mongolia's desire to become a Eurasian commercial transit corridor. The Darkhan road is also the busiest in the country, with only two lanes and history of automobile accidents and deteriorating road conditions.

The ministry chose a Chinese company (China Geo Engineering Corporation) to expand the Darkhan road, with funding from the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. However, the project has been delayed, with costs increasing in recent years due to COVID constraints.

Many motorists have criticized previous Route and Transport Minister Khaltar for the delay and poor quality of work on the Darkhan road, which became one of the essential grounds for the minister’s firing in August 2022.

Another aspect of the Darkhan road scandal is that the arrested vice minister's brother is Batzandan, a vocal opposition leader from the Democratic Party who broke away to start a new political party before the 2020 elections. Batzandan said that his brother’s detention resulted from a political witch hunt and intimidation directed at him.

Batzandan is currently being held in a separate case for alleged corruption. Before his arrest, Batzandan disclosed how he plotted with then-Mongolian People's Party Prime Minister Khurelsukh to split votes from the Democratic Party during the 2020 general election.

Arrests without a judicial warrant are prevalent and people are routinely interrogated in police detention without a lawyer, according to the UN human rights watchdog.

Author

Amar Adiya is editor-in-chief of Mongolia Weekly newsletter and regional director at Washington-based strategic advisory firm BowerGroupAsia.