Comments attributed to CEO totally false
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – Oyu Tolgoi staged a press conference today in order to refute incorrect and unwarranted allegations made against the company and its CEO by several MPs on Wednesday, September 29.
MPs said that the Oyu Tolgoi CEO had characterised the Mongolian government as ‘greedy’. The MPs made this allegation despite being well aware that the CEO never made any such comment. An Australian newspaper used the word in a headline, but later admitted it used the word in error and corrected the article.
Munkhbat Ania, Oyu Tolgoi Senior Vice President, said the facts about this story had repeatedly been made clear. He added that some MPs had claimed to have read the ‘interview’ with the CEO, despite no interview ever having taken place.
“Oyu Tolgoi is committed to fulfilling our promise to Mongolia” said Munkhbat. “In building the future of Mongolia, it is important to have open and honest discussion. Repeating allegations already known to be false simply distracts from the important discussion we must have to work together to build Mongolia’s economy.”
Munkhbat said that a video of the CEO’s speech to ‘Discover Mongolia’, including the passage that led to the original story in the Australian newspaper, was available for everyone to see on the Oyu Tolgoi Facebook page. “The public can see for themselves that our CEO never said these things, we could not be more open and transparent” he said.
“At Oyu Tolgoi we employ 10,000 of our fellow Mongolians, we are putting in place world class technology and we are building a community that will be part of Mongolia’s future for generations to come” he said. “That is what is important.”
About Oyu Tolgoi (www.ot.mn)
Oyu Tolgoi LLC is Mongolia’s largest copper and gold mining company and is a strategic partnership between the Government of Mongolia (34 per cent stake), Ivanhoe Mines (66 per cent) and Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto is the major shareholder in Ivanhoe Mines and the manager of the Oyu Tolgoi project. In addition to dividends from its 34 per cent stake in Oyu Tolgoi, the Government of Mongolia will receive taxes and royalties.
Oyu Tolgoi, located in the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia, will be one of the largest and highest-grade copper and gold mines in the world. It is the largest project ever developed in Mongolia, requiring a capital investment for phase one of more than US$6 billion.
Oyu Tolgoi is committed to contributing to a sustainable future for Mongolia. At least 9 out of 10 employees will be Mongolian once the mine is in production and Oyu Tolgoi is investing US$58 million dollars (78 billion tugriks) in training and education and an additional US$27 million dollars (36 billion tugriks) in the Workforce Employment Project designed to help address the general skills shortage in Mongolia.
Oyu Tolgoi’s key priorities are the health and safety of employees, best-practice environmental management, contributing to sustainable communities and always doing business with integrity, for the benefit of all the project’s shareholders and the people of Mongolia.
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