As a reminder of what brought him to Dili as a United Nations administrator almost a year ago, John Ryan has a satellite photograph hanging in his office building. Taken last September, it shows the East Timor capital being consumed by hundreds of fires after the August 30th referendum on independence. The UN official from Rathgar in Dublin is in charge of the reconstruction of Dili from ground zero, with powers akin to that of a colonial governor.

It is a daunting task. Most public and private buildings were burned and trashed, and all vital installations sabotaged. There was no civil service. All the city jobs, such as judges, police and teachers had been held by Indonesians. Both the city, its bureaucracy and its infrastructure had to be rebuilt.

But like any city boss, Mr Ryan is only as good as his budget. A year ago, as a great wave of sympathy for the East Timorese swept the world, it seemed money would be no object. At a donor conference in Tokyo in December, nations pledged $600 million for the building of an Asian nation from the ashes.

So had he enough resources for the task, I asked. His reply was blunt.

"We do not. Very little of the committed money has actually come through."

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of UNTAET, is working on a total UN budget for the present fiscal year of $60 million, he said, "which is a far cry from the $600 million pledged in December". Only $16 million of that is earmarked for capital expenditure.

Some critics blame the UN in New York for tardiness in setting up a formal system to assure governments that donations were being well spent, but the result is that a year after the conflagration, the centre of Dili is still a maze of blackened ruins, including historic buildings like the 350-year-old Portuguese armoury, and this will be the case for a very long time.

One of the first things Mr Ryan did was to draw up a comprehensive list of public buildings and schools for urgent reconstruction. But the money did not come through.

"Only six buildings now remain on the list which can expect to be refurbished in the next fiscal year," he said. At least the new administration will not need as many public buildings as the Indonesians as the new civil service will number only 9,000, compared to a bloated 30,000 under Indonesian rule. He hopes the private sector will lease burnt-out buildings and undertake renovation. Meanwhile, 15,000 shelter kits have been distributed with the help of NGOs throughout the country and most private homes in Dili have been patched up.

This work was complicated, Mr Ryan said, by a request from the East Timorese leaders not to rush things, so that rural people who had fled their villages would be persuaded to go home.

Some countries have honoured their donor commitments. "The Japanese are undoubtedly the most generous contributors," said Mr Ryan, who has worked for the UN in Cambodia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo, and also as a solicitor for Stephen McKenzie & Co in Dublin. Tokyo has paid over $50 million and identified key projects such as the total refurbishment of the market system for spending it, he said.

Dili's life revolves around the central Mercado, which is being rebuilt and roofed, with community facilities, tourist offices and various agencies, so it will become the focal part of the city.

It is already expanding rapidly as most of Dili's original residents have returned. UNTAET estimates the present population at 132,000, of which 15,000 are internally displaced people. The Indonesian census figure in 1998 was 160,000, which means some 43,000 original inhabitants have not come back since the city was burned by pro-Jakarta militias and Indonesian soldiers.

Electricity has been restored to most of Dili, also thanks mainly to Japan (and Britain) though there are occasional blackouts - one of which occurred during dinner with Mr Ryan and his wife, Benita, at a beachfront restaurant which left us picking bones out of tropical fish in almost total darkness.

The Irish Government has paid the initial £1 million it pledged, mainly for humanitarian assistance, and has disbursed £100,000 of a second tranch of £1 million. An Irish aid office in Dili will open shortly.

One of the problems in getting things done is that there are few qualified people with basic skills. "There are simply not enough carpenters, builders or electricians, to work in construction," said Zhao Yongge from Beijing, who is civil affairs officer on Mr Ryan's staff. It is the same in every occupation. The whole country has only 23 qualified doctors.

HOWEVER, despite all the problems, UNTAET's unique exercise of building and managing a state is showing results. The skeleton of a civil society has been re-created in the capital. As "governor", Mr Ryan has not just been working to get the city's electricity, water, communications and commerce running again; he is also responsible for law and order, which means setting up a court and prison system.

The Dili court reopened in May. East Timor law graduates were located abroad and given courses to form a law body of 16 judges, eight prosecutors and eight defenders. UN officials had to scour Jakarta for law books, however, as Indonesian statutes form the basic legislation. The prisons have reopened, and 50 prisoners await trial in two jailhouses.

Civpol, the UN police in Dili (who carry side-arms since a brawl at the market in April got out of control), are training East Timorese police recruits. Fifty graduated in July, but lack of funds means only 50 cadets graduate every 12 weeks. Some 3,000 teachers have been selected and all 200,000 East Timor children will attend school in the autumn, though desks and blackboards are still deficient.

A chamber of commerce was established in February and meets regularly, with 2,696 businesses set up by the end of June, subject to a UN imposed flat tax of 10 per cent. The Asian Development Bank is training local staff to run a Central Fiscal Authority.

To help alleviate mass unemployment, the World Bank, Australian Aid, USAID and others have launched short-term employment projects, paying $3 a day, an amount specified by the US government, said Mr Ryan, who believes "in local terms it is not unreasonable". NGOs pay about twice that, according to Paul Ledwidge, field director for Goal.

Mr Ryan's mandate is to establish an effective local administration before the end of 2001, when the United Nations Interim Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) plans to packs its bags and turn the place over to the East Timorese. Thus "capacity building" and creating "the conditions for sustainable development" are crucial. To this end, the UN is already sharing power. A cabinet was sworn in six weeks ago with eight portfolios, four for East Timorese.

"It is no longer a UN administration, it is an East Timor transitional administration," said Mr Ryan, who has begun ceding executive authority in some city departments. Soon a shadow "governor" will be appointed who will eventually take over as administrator for the city, whereupon Mr Ryan will become simply an adviser.

The reality is that the better the solicitor from Rathgar does his job, the sooner he will lose it.