Draft:Badraa Dashdorj

Badraa Dashdorj was the first Chairman of the Financial Regulatory Committee, newly established by the Parliament of Mongolia to regulate the stock exchange and non-banking financial institutions such as saving and credit unions.

Badraa Dashdorj at his work

Personal history

As all Mongolians, Badraa went by one name, “Badraa” given at birth, and Dashdorj was a patrimonium, father’s name. In the Mongolian documents, the name reads as “Dashdorjiin Badraa”, which literally means “Badraa of Dashdorj” (“Badraa, son of Dashdorj”). In the Western style documents, Dashdorj was a family name and Badraa was a given name. He also had a tribal name, Nasan, which was adopted in Mongolia starting from the late 1990s. Hence, his full official name was Nasan Dashdorj Badraa.

He was born on 23 December 1974 in Ulaanbaatar. He was the younger of two sons of Dashdorj and Murungua. His father Dashdorj (1940-2018), son a nomadic herder from Bayan-Unjuul spun (county) of the Tuv Province (Central Province), trained as an electric engineer in the Kiev Politechnical Institute, was a trade union leader for almost two decades and became First Deputy Minister of Labor in the 1991-92 cabinet. He was also a member of national legislature, Great People’s Khural, in the 1980s. Badraa’s mother, Murungua (b.1945) is a second daughter of Inner Mongolian freedom fighter Medelt executed in 1953 in China. She was the first Mongolian woman professionally trained as a camera person to graduate the All-Soviet State Institute of Cinematography. She is one of the founders of the Mongolian cartoon art as industry and made many of the first Mongolian cartoons. She is awarded the Order of Meritorious Arts Professional.

Badraa graduated the School no.3 of the Soviet Union Embassy in Mongolia (currently the joint school no.3) in 1992. From 1992 to 1996 he attended the School of Economics of the Mongolian National (State) University and graduated it with banking and finance degree. In 2001-2002 Badraa obtained Master of Arts (Development Economics) from the Australian National University.

Badraa was married and had two daughters, the youngest of whom was still in the mother’s womb at the time of his murder.

Career

After graduation in 1996 Badraa joined the country’s central bank, Mongol Bank, as auditor. Just after three years he was appointed by Mongol Bank the deputy representative and consequently deputy receiver at the Sergelen Bosgoltyn Bank (Renaissance Bank). From 2002 till 2004 he was Director of the Policy Coordination Division of Mongol Bank. In 2004 he turned to private business and became CEO of Ulaanbaatar Capital City Bank, where he worked till 2006.

On 25 January 2006, Badraa was appointed the Chairman of the newly founded Financial Regulatory Committee (FRC) under the supervision of the Parliament of Mongolia, the rank equaling cabinet minister. Until then saving and credit unions, credit cooperatives went unregulated and a bubble based largely on ponzie scheme was building in the market. Unscrupulous owners of non-banking financial institutions promised sky high rates of returns often defrauding their savings holders. Many of them were going bankrupt already by the time of establishment of the FRC.

Badraa introduced very initial regulatory framework of these institutions, which increased transparency and established rule-based system. They required legally reporting, auditing and control mechanisms.

Badraa’s tragic end

On 15 June 2006, Badraa was murdered at the entrance to his official premises by a deranged owner of a saving and credit Union, which went bankrupt. The murderer brought a knife from his home, showing his intent for a premeditated murder, and he was executed in 2007 after the court trial, which went into the High Court.

In memory of Badraa

Badraa’s classmates from his university and high school, friends and colleagues, his family has created the Badraa Foundation for Justice in 2006. The foundation has started from one scholarship and expanded to over thirty scholarships annually to students who study at the School of Business in the National University of Mongolia and banking and finance in the Institute of Finance and Economy.

The foundations seeks to create a community which promotes good governance and ethics in the financial business in Mongolia. It organizes lecture series, undertakes market and financial research by its recipients and promotes mentor relations.

The scholarships are provided on the basis of need and performance and is one of the most prestigious scholarship programs in this field. It has a community of almost 200 recipients currently and it graduates are know for receiving employment offers well before the graduation and the salary offer higher than average.

Among the investors in the fund and scholarships are most prominent institutions and companies in Mongolia such as Xacbank, Mitsui Co, Energy International, Achit-Ikht LLC, APU, and many other individuals and institutions.

References

http://www.badraafoundation.org/BFJ/04_badraa.html