The issue of corruption today is not a problem facing individual countries alone, but rather it is a major problem for many countries that are affected throughout the world due to its negative effects on competitiveness in the international arena. Con...
The issue of corruption today is not a problem facing individual countries alone, but rather it is a major problem for many countries that are affected throughout the world due to its negative effects on competitiveness in the international arena. Consequently, this creates major obstacles to the development of many countries. Hence, corruption in countries around the world is a priority issue that must be addressed unilaterally and comprehensively. As for the country, corruption reduces mutual trust in society as a whole and undermines social integrity; the matter needs to be solved urgently.
Due to this problem, the study is intended to identify the situation of the current public sector corruption in Mongolia. This study is conducted among the governor officers, civil servants working in areas of Ulaanbaatar’s Bayangol District's Governor office and its affiliates to determine general perception of anti-corruption knowledge and the specific factors that influence the matters of anti-corruption and bribery as well as ways to prevent them.
The literature research method has been applied to this study to understand the general knowledge of corruption, specific factors that influence corruption, different forms of corruption, and the protocols that are in place to fight corruption. Using a questionnaire method, the survey conducted from 150 employees of Ulaanbaatar’s Bayangol District’s Governor office and its affiliates, was analyzed to give the following perspective from employees regarding corruption.
The employees who've participated in the survey have shown a very high job satisfaction rate, and we suspect the most important reason for this result is the limited number of job openings in Mongolia's economy today, making civil servants very fond of the position they hold due to its job stability. However, the majority of participants also viewed the reasons for the low-integrity and corruption among government officials is due to low-paying salaries, unnecessary involvement of politics, and the government officials' low values. Hence, to solve the problem of low-integrity among officials, the majority of the participants strongly suggested increasing the government officials' salaries to a better standard, improving the level of values imposed upon the officials, and the amount of anti-corruption presentations held among officials, while lowering the involvement of the political parties in the economy and the amount of procedures that hinder the speed of legal processing.
From the survey conducted, we have concluded that in order to ameliorate the political conditions of Mongolia, the Mongolian government should take the following actions:
1. Increase the values and the virtues of individuals to a greater level and uphold them to a higher standard. For the long-term, we need to make adjustments to Mongolia's educational systems in elementary, middle, and high schools. Specifically in the areas of social ethics, there needs to be major improvements in the amount of classes and the duration for which they are taught. For the short-term, we need to reteach government officials' administrative philosophy, reinstate the ethics required for the positions, and reform old training methods to improve social justice and government officials' competency.
2. From an institutional perspective, we need to increase job salaries, pensions, and government welfare. Specifically regarding job salaries, there needs to be a better and higher standard for pay and benefits as of private sectors. Also, the institution needs to uphold a merit-based system, greatly limit the involvement of the political parties, and provide stable and secure environment for officials to exercise their authority. The Civil Service Council of Mongolia needs to better reform Mongolian political structure and competency. By protecting the sovereignty of the officials from political pressure, there is great potential for improvement and progress for anti-corruption. It is also of utmost importance for bribery afflicted officials to abdicate their positions and for the court to process their sentencing accordingly.
3. From an environmental perspective, as a developing country, the civic culture of Mongolia is still lacking in awareness regarding corruption. It is no use reiterating the issues of bribery among government officials and legal court systems to the average citizen, since citizens themselves partake in such acts, and we in turn get the result of those actions. In a case like this, in order to change the mindset of our average citizens, culturally we need to bring shame to bribery and corruption while providing the atmosphere necessary to bring such changes. The Internet, social media, anti-corruption educational programs, and NGO’s are vital tools to fight against corruption, and we need to utilize these tools.
Despite Mongolian government officials' general knowledge regarding corruption, influencing factors of corruption, and programs in place to fight corruption, these certain problems may have prevented the study from being more accurate.
In the past, general studies have included the average citizens to create survey polls. However, since we dealt with government officials only, we observed a high likelihood of dishonest answers on certain questions due to officials’ interest in self-preservation and protection from antagonism.
Hence, for future studies, we need to include the general public opinions and polls to compare and contrast with those of government officials.
The number and the circumstance of our participants in the study were not to an optimum level. Despite the fact that we surveyed 150 employees from Ulaanbaatar’s Bayangol District’s Governor office and its affiliates in our study, factors such as age, job duties, experience, and low number of high position officials may have led to lack of comprehensive information. Thus, in future studies, specifically investigation of awareness, we need to include more participants to achieve a more accurate and concise conclusion.
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