A very informative article.

The lack of infrastructure development in East Timor is a result of imbalances in qualifications of the political leadership and the broader professional class.

Basically East Timor has world class politicians who lean towards humanities backgrounds (or no tertiary education), who are great arguers, litigious and ideological. Much of this stems from the dislocation of the struggle against Indonesian rule. But few, or no, East Timorese are engineers who build infrastructure. Another outcome of this lack of technologists is that East Timor has virtually no industrial base.

East Timor's large oil (and gas) fund comes from profits required of the multinationals who built and own the oil and gas fields near East Timor. There is a disconnect between East Timor successful accumulation of wealth (the oil fund) but then the lack of central planning leading to a lack of infrastructure.

Perhaps China is building or has provided the most useful infrastructure in East Timor (the power station and key government buildings) while the West builds a luxury shopping center in Dili. Perhaps China has the infrastructure vision for East Timor that the West, including Australia, lacks?

Pete
http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/east-timor-potted-history.html