'I wan go job but I no well': Pidgin English among 165 languages translated (at taxpayers expense) to help jobless claim dole The Department for Work and Pensions has hired a translator who speaks Pidgin, a variant of English, despite only 2 per cent of Nigerians using the dialect.
It means a claimant who tells Jobcentre staff: ‘I wan go job but I no well’, would have his words translated to ‘I would like to work but I am sick’.
Millions of pounds in taxpayer's money is being spent on paying interpreters to help foreign-speaking nationals claim benefits. Staff at local Job Centre Plus would have also been able to access the translation service The Department for Work and Pensions offers translators in 165 languages and used interpreters 271,695 times from October 2010 to September last year. The most popular language is Polish, which was used more than 51,000 times. The translation services are contracted out by the DWP This is followed by more than 22,000 for Slovak and Czech while services for Urdu, Portuguese and Punjab were used far less. Other languages needed for translation include Vietnamese, Italian, Amharic and the Ethiopian language of Tigrinya. Translation was needed once each for French Canadian and Icelandic. However, the service for Basque, Catalan, Tongan and Pidgin was not needed. One of the languages offered in England is Welsh however, this was used only three times. All services are contracted out by the DWP. One of the companies regularly used, the Big Word Interpreting Service Limited, received £3.5million of public money in one year. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, told the Sunday Telegraph: 'This is the height of absurdity. It is essential that when migrants come to this country they learn to speak English.' Jonathan Isaby of the Taxpayers' Alliance said that people needed to make more of an effort to speak English. The DWP said the number of times translation services was used is small in comparison to the 15 million people who claim pensions and benefits. 'The cost of interpreting and translation is attributable to the economic downturn and subsequent increase in the number of customers using DWP services.'
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Posted: at 19-03-2012 10:56 AM (13 years ago) | Addicted Hero
That is part of the organized fraud against tax payers. Even when you demonstrate excellent English skills they will still hire an interpreter because it is one of the way they spend their budget and keep the services of the interpreters. In some cases they will hire Yoruba man or woman to interprets for an Igbo or Bini person when in fact the person can speak and understand standard English. So at the end of the day to officially find a common ground for the interpreter to get his job done and be paid Pigin will be used.
Posted: at 19-03-2012 03:22 PM (13 years ago) | Upcoming
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