Since January 12, when the already bleak world of Port-au-Prince and its neighboring communities suffered sudden devastation, the United Nations has been entrusted with millions of dollars to stabilize the lives of the Haitian people. On April 20, the UN quietly increased this year’s budget for the project to $732.4 million.

Remarkably, two thirds of that sum is allotted to the salary and upkeep of its own workers.

Around $495.8 million is earmarked for salaries, hazard pay, benefits, vacation allowances and upkeep for an expanded staff of 15,123 soldiers, police, international contract personnel and staffers, while $33.9 million goes to the world organization’s national staff.

The size of the UN’s peacekeeping bill for the Caribbean nation has been a source of concern among the 36 member nations who foot around 96 percent of the bill for such projects. The other 156 nations who pay the remaining 4 percent are less worried. Under the existing cost-sharing formula, the U.S. pays 27 percent of the total, which equates to $197.7 million for this mission.

Since the earthquake razed the Haitian capital, these thousands of UN workers have labored to rescue victims from the rubble, provide care for the wounded, and bring stability to the lives of the survivors. But, more than three months after the disaster struck, the magnitude of the distress remains utterly daunting.

Alarmingly, the inflated budget only covers the fiscal year ending in 10 weeks, on June 30. At that time, the UN will formulate another estimate for the devastated island. With the emergency medical rescue phase having come to a disappointing end, the relief efforts are now re-focused on protecting women and children from sexual predators, establishing makeshift shelters, clearing great expanses of rubble, restoring infrastructure, and providing employment for the 1.3 million displaced survivors.

In short, the end of the mission is still many months, and billions of dollars, away.

The United Nations has estimated that Haiti’s long-term reconstruction, including precautions to deal with floods and earthquakes, will require a total of $11.5 billion. The debt-stricken U.S. has promised more than $2 billion of that amount. How can the countries footing the bulk of the colossal bill be assured that money for repairing Haiti does not end up lining the pockets of corrupt Haitian leaders or UN staff?

Considering the UN’s deplorable track record in Rwanda, Darfur and Congo, is there cause for optimism in its reconstruction of Port-au-Prince and its environs?

International monitors rate Haiti as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Even before the earthquake struck, the Caribbean nation was the poorest country in the Americas overwhelmingly because of the neglect from and bad governance by its leaders. Is there any reason to believe government officials will not siphon off of the millions begin pumped into their country? Despite the international community’s generous intentions, jaded Haitians have little faith that they will see much of the aid pledged to reconstruct their shattered country.

After attending the UN’s inaugural session in San Francisco in 1945, Herbert W. Armstrong said, “The United Nations conference is producing nothing but strife and bickering, and is destined from its inception to end in total failure.”

In the 65 years since, the organization’s peacekeeping missions have often proven to be worse than useless. The track record of UN forces includes such blights as cooperation with Hezbollah to kidnap Israeli soldiers, facilitating the deployment of German and Japanese troops overseas under the UN banner, committing hundreds of sex crimes against the peoples the UN was sent to protect, and losing millions of dollars allocated for UN development projects in North Korea to the nefarious Kim Jong-Il.

Incompetence and corruption in Haiti under the UN’s watch should come as no surprise. World leaders have pronounced the UN as man’s last hope for peace, and Haiti is just the latest item on a long rap sheet of evidence proving that the hope is misplaced.

There is no hope in man.

But that does not mean there’s not great reason to have hope. Mr. Armstrong often explained that even in the face of catastrophes, natural disasters and human suffering we can be filled with a vibrant hope. “Why can’t the heads of government in the nations of the world realize that only God has the answers?,” he wrote.

To understand more about these God-given answers, and how they can bring vibrant hope into your life, read “Why God Didn’t Stop the Haiti Quake.”