Behind the facade

It's not a joke but a true story. A "socialist" president of an African country wanted to showcase his avant-garde vision to the people. So, he commissioned a Dutch food company to build a state-of-the-art bread production facility in the nation's capital, and amid much fanfare, flour went in one end of the factory, and fresh, sliced bread in colorful packaging came out the other.

This technological wonder worked flawlessly for a handful of months, but had shut its doors before the year was out. The contractors had been commissioned to keep the machinery operational for a few months, then hand over the keys to the staff of trained locals. Hence, partly due to government indifference and also to incompetent workers losing their instruction manuals, the maintenance of the machinery ceased, and soon the complex itself followed. The technological marvel had been rendered a shell...