The International Criminal Court, ICC, advertised for a job of a Kikuyu translator to help in nabbing either President Uhuru Kenyatta, or his Deputy, William Ruto. The two translator positions – 4012EE – PO Translator (Kikuyu and Swahili) and 4014EE-PO Associate Translator (Kikuyu and Swahili) – are positions that are based at The Hague.
Considering that the ICC has been the most vilified institution in Kenya today, especially among the Jubilee alliance leaders and supporters (majority who are Kikuyus and Kalenjins), one would have expected that no one would be interested in the job. . .far from it, the ICC website was jammed up with hundreds of views.
So why was the website down? At the close of the year, a successful candidate for the job will take home Ksh 6 MILLION! The Translator job attracts a net annual salary of € 65,606 (Sh7,347,872) while the associate Translator will be paid a €54,657 (Sh6,121,584) per year!
The Translator will work in the Language Services Unit of the Office of the Prosecutor, under the supervision of the Language Coordinator. He or she will work in a demanding and high-pressure but rewarding environment. The successful candidate will be expected to:
– translate and self-revise documents from Kikuyu/Swahili into English, and possibly vice versa; such documents
cover a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, legal, military, medical, forensic, human rights,
administrative and financial matters;
– proofread and cross-read the work of colleagues;
– summarize written or audio/video material in Kikuyu/Swahili into English;
– transcribe and quality control audio/video material;
– provide telephone interpretation between Kikuyu/Swahili and English;
– contribute to terminology and reference databases;
– perform other tasks as required (including administrative and/or IT related tasks).
With over Ksh six million cumulative annual pay; that’s the sort of job whose risk (being called a community betrayer) is worth every shilling to the last cent. This comes amidst a ballooning wage bill and a digital dream government that’s planning to lay-off thousands of workers.
Already, public service employment has been frozen. Government no longer employs. Should want to try your luck, check the ICC website!  However, our source at the Hague told Kenya Today  the current joke in the OTP cafeteria is the way they describe members of C1 (criminal no 1)  community in a new coded language as DEs ‘Dark Entrepreneurs’.
This is after most OTP witnesses agreed to testify but are said to have been bought off by the defence even after getting money from OTP. With these translation jobs, one only imagines if TNA moles get the job. I mean, aren’t there any other outside Mt Kenya linguists? Gosh! Here is one occasion where the ICC will have to trust the devil to do God’s work.
“This is the challenge OTP is facing. Initially, even before Ocampo left, Bensouda who knows a lot about ethnicity in Kenya warned on relying on Kikuyu witnesses. She was in college with other Kenyans and knew about the “money issue” but very few members from other communities came forward so we made do with these guys. . .we knew we would be cooked someday,” says our source.
Sad! Anyway, should you wish to apply, hurry, deadline is on 18th March 2014!