Motorists in the capital queued for hours for petrol, and more than two years after the war’s end some parts of Iraq are still suffering power cuts for up to 16 hours every day. The first complaint any visitor to Iraq hears is the perennial mantra maku karaba, maku maay: no electricity, no water.

Insurgents yesterday continued their relentless assault on those trying to rebuild the nation. They killed a foreign contractor and six Iraqis working for a US company west of Baghdad, the latest of more than 295 civilian contractors working on American projects to have been killed in two years.

Ibrahim Jaafari, the Prime Minister, will lead a high-level delegation to a conference in Brussels tomorrow organised by the European Union and the United States. He and other senior ministers will appeal to Western governments to kickstart the stalled reconstruction programme. Of the $21 billion (£11.5 billion) pledged by Washington, only $8.2 billion has been spent.

Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, said they would present foreign governments and agencies with a “map of our needs” in the economic, security, political and judicial sectors.

He said: “We want tangible things that the Iraqi citizen can feel and would affect his life: things that would make the Iraqi people believe that the international society is helping them.”

He urged the United Nations and others to begin in the southern city of Basra, and the Kurdish city of Arbil where there was “a reasonable degree of secure environment”.

But sceptics point out that although 94 per cent of security incidents take place in three provinces around Baghdad, lawlessness continues to deter reconstruction workers everywhere.

In Arbil yesterday, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 traffic police and wounded 103 when he drove a car packed with explosives on to their sports field. That was one of at least eight car bombs that killed twenty-nine people across Iraq.

In the south, where Iraqis say the Government and coalition do not have the excuse of insurgency, there is bewilderment about why the world’s most advanced nations still have not fixed the electricity supply.

Brigadier Chris Hughes, Commander of 12 Mechanised Brigade in Basra, said: “We try and make them understand that it is a very significant problem that everybody faces, that we are talking about 30 years of decay under Saddam’s regime, and that a very, very big programme is needed to put the power supply up and in the immediate short term there’s very little that we can do.”

Stuart Innes, the British Consul-General in Basra, said: “Big investment is needed and I mean big investment, which is far beyond any individual or group of donors. Power stations at a billion dollars a throw, probably five or six of them with a lead time of two or three years.”

Of 300 NGOs operating in Iraq before the kidnappings began, only 100 remain. Many have decamped to Jordan.

There is some progress in the south. Iraqi Airways have restarted flights from Baghdad to Basra. In Muthana province British military teams have nearly refurbished a 40 megawatt gas-powered station, and Japan has announced plans for a 60 megawatt plant.

Everywhere locals complain that corrupt Iraqi officials and western contractors were colluding to siphon off millions, and delivering substandard work. Captain Ibrahim Kamel, a Samawa policeman, said: “The money goes in many directions and into many pockets, but not to the benefit of the civilians.”

SLOW PROGRESS

Electricity: Iraq produces 4,000 megawatts daily, and needs 7,000MW. The coalition hoped to be producing 6,000MW by June 2004, when it transferred sovereignty, but achieved only 4,800MW, since reduced by sabotage

Oil: producing 1.5 million barrels a day (2.2 million barrels before the war)

Water: 54 per cent of Iraqi families have good drinking water; 17 per cent stable access to water and 29 per cent unstable access

Education: The UN has rehabilitated 84 schools and provided basic education kits for 6.2 million students

US-led reconstruction:

Times Recommends

• 'Great Schlep' may seal deal for Obama
• Hindu 'storm troopers' flex their muscles
• Ahtisaari: deserved reward for (failed) plan