"We could spend too much time in endless meetings, with no clear leadership and people's frustration exploding. They (displaced people) have heard of billions of dollars being available and they are sitting in tents and saying 'I want my life and community back,'" said Egeland.

More than 228,000 people were killed or went missing when an undersea earthquake sent huge waves into a dozen Indian Ocean nations from Somalia to Indonesia on Dec. 26. The homes and livelihoods of an estimated 5 million people were affected.

Governments, private organizations and individuals from around the world have pledged or spent more than $8 billion dollars in the relief effort.

A large amount of this money has not yet been spent while aid groups and governments wait for nations to draw up their "master plans" for reconstruction.

Egeland said Indonesia, the Maldives and India had put together their master plans and Sri Lanka's would be ready in the next few days.

Indonesian Minister of National Development Planning Sri Mulyani Indrawati said her government was aware of the growing impatience and was doing its best to accelerate rebuilding.

"We wanted to ensure that these efforts starting right now would be well-planned, coordinated and done in a transparent manner," she said.

Asked about the role of the military, which has been criticized for human rights abuses, Indrawati said it was important the government not grant any special favors to the military.

"We are very aware that the reputation of this implementing agency is at stake and we are committed to ... a high standard of governance and accountability," she said.

PURGATORY PERIOD

Speaking at the same conference, special UN envoy for tsunami relief and former US President Bill Clinton said the post-emergency period was "purgatory" as people tried to put their lives back together and disputes continued over how best to spend the money.

Flanked by former President George Bush, he urged NGOs to begin spending money as soon as possible and work through some of the "road blocks" to ease people's frustration.

"The more money we can sensibly spend in specific concrete ways consistent with nations' long term recovery plans from the NGO and business community in the next six months, the better," he said.

Once this NGO money was spent, he said it would be more likely governments that had pledged assistance would pull through with their promises.

Bush, who has joined Clinton in trying to get companies to pledge more tsunami assistance, also said the rebuilding efforts needed to gain momentum.

He stressed there should be "no corruption of any kind" and urged full accountability and transparency.

Egeland urged governments to follow proper bidding rules when advertising contracts for rebuilding work, a criticism made against the US government in its handing out of deals for Iraq reconstruction.