A translation mistake drained Kuwait’s treasury for 30 years!

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Works revealed a translation mistake that occurred 30 years ago, which drained Kuwait of millions of dollars that were spent on unnecessary construction work for the resilience of the foundations of buildings against groundwater.

The ministry conducted a study on international standards in construction projects, which showed that it had adhered to implementing one of the special clauses in its construction projects in a wrong way since 1987 due to a mistake in translating technical terms from English into Arabic.

The Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Works for the construction projects sector stated: “We studied the international standards, and after contacting the international offices in this regard, we concluded that the specifications written in English were correct, but they were translated into Arabic incorrectly, forcing the ministry to take immediate action not to repeat this fatal mistake.”