Well, here we are again. Another day, another bureaucratic sinkhole in sub-Saharan Africa where the only thing being 'developed' is the offshore portfolio of a government lackey. This time, the spotlight of human depravity shines on Malawi’s Greenbelt Authority. For those of you who don’t speak 'Developmental Grifter,' the Greenbelt Authority was ostensibly designed to turn the nation into a lush, irrigated paradise of food security. Instead, it has functioned as a high-speed vacuum cleaner for the public purse, sucking up K39 billion in just four months. That is roughly twenty-two million dollars for those of you who prefer your corruption in a currency that actually buys things.

To the uninitiated, four months might seem like a remarkably short window to vanish that much capital. It suggests a level of logistical precision usually reserved for military invasions or the launch of a new iPhone. But in the world of Malawian administrative theft, it’s just another Tuesday. This isn’t a scandal; it’s a performance art piece. While the global north prattles on about 'Sustainable Development Goals' and 'capacity building'—phrases that mean absolutely nothing but sound great in a Davos PowerPoint—the local elite have mastered a much simpler science: the science of the direct transfer. Why bother building irrigation systems for the poor when you can simply irrigate your own bank account?

The irony of the 'Greenbelt' moniker is almost too heavy to lift. The only thing green about this initiative is the color of the money being funneled into the void. It’s the same old song, a remix of the infamous 'Cashgate' scandal that crippled the nation years ago. You’d think there would be some variety in the way these kleptocrats pillage their own people, but humanity is remarkably uncreative when it comes to greed. It’s always the same: a vaguely named authority, a nebulous mandate to 'improve livelihoods,' and a sudden, catastrophic disappearance of funds that leaves everyone blinking in the sun, wondering where the tractors went.

Let’s look at the Left’s predictable response to this. They will wring their hands and talk about 'systemic vulnerabilities' and 'colonial legacies,' as if a ghost from the 19th century personally authorized the wire transfers. They will call for more 'oversight,' which in practice means hiring more consultants to write more reports that nobody will read, funded by more donor money that will eventually be stolen by the next 'Authority' created to fix the first one. It’s a closed loop of failure that keeps the humanitarian-industrial complex in business while the actual farmers continue to pray for rain because the government-funded pipes are made of vapor and lies.

On the other side of the aisle, the Right will use this as a convenient excuse to preach about the inherent failures of state-led initiatives, ignoring the fact that their own preferred 'private sector' solutions are usually just the same grifters wearing slightly more expensive suits. They’ll talk about 'market efficiencies' while conveniently ignoring the fact that the market for corruption in Malawi is the most efficient thing the country has ever produced. There is no ideological high ground here; there is only a landscape of scorched earth where a cornfield should be.

K39 billion in 120 days. Think about the sheer velocity of that theft. It takes real talent to spend money that fast without actually producing a single tangible result. If these people applied half of that organizational energy to, say, actually planting seeds, Malawi would be exporting grain to Mars. But there is no profit in growth; there is only profit in the appearance of growth. The Authority exists not to manage land, but to manage the expectations of donors and the desperation of the populace long enough for the checks to clear.

We live in a world where we pretend that 'governance' is a real thing, rather than a thin veneer of respectability draped over a predatory instinct as old as the species. The Greenbelt Authority is the perfect microcosm of the human condition: a grand, noble-sounding plan to save the starving, executed by people who would steal the fillings out of a corpse’s mouth if they thought they could get away with it. And they will get away with it. There will be an inquiry, a few middle-managers will be sacrificed to the gods of public relations, and the K39 billion will remain exactly where it is—somewhere far away from a Malawian farm. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will continue its slow, terminal slide into idiocy, distracted by the next shiny disaster, while the people who were supposed to be 'secured' by this green belt are left with nothing but the tightening of their own belts around their empty stomachs. It’s not a tragedy; it’s the status quo. And frankly, I’m too tired to be surprised anymore.