initdb failure with Postgres 8.4.4

Initdb fails for me when host machine has no access to the Postgres build location.

LOG: could not open directory .../install/share/timezone": No such file or directory
LOG: could not open directory .../install/share/timezone": No such file or directory
WARNING: could not open directory .../install/share/timezonesets": No such file or directory
HINT: This may indicate an incomplete PostgreSQL installation,
or that the file .../bin.Linux/postgres" has been moved away from its proper location.
FATAL: invalid value for parameter "timezone_abbreviations": "Default"
DEBUG: shmem_exit(1): 0 callbacks to make
DEBUG: proc_exit(1): 0 callbacks to make
DEBUG: exit(1)

The postgres executable is in the proper place.
The truncated paths .../install/share/timezone, etc point to the original build location.

The timezone and other files are available in the local directory:
share % ls -1
conversion_create.sql
information_schema.sql
pg_hba.conf.sample
pg_ident.conf.sample
pg_service.conf.sample
postgres.bki
postgres.description
postgresql.conf.sample
postgres.shdescription
psqlrc.sample
recovery.conf.sample
snowball_create.sql
sql_features.txt
system_views.sql
timezone
timezonesets
tsearch_data

I call initdb with the -L option pointing to that directory, from initdb log I can see that it is indeed being used for certain things -

POSTGRES_BKI=.../share/postgres.bki
POSTGRES_DESCR=.../share/postgres.description
POSTGRES_SHDESCR=.../share/postgres.shdescription
POSTGRESQL_CONF_SAMPLE=.../share/postgresql.conf.sample
PG_HBA_SAMPLE=.../share/pg_hba.conf.sample
PG_IDENT_SAMPLE=.../share/pg_ident.conf.sample

I am wondering why the timezone files cannot be found there as well?
This is quite urgent and any help will be greatly appreciated.
Michael.
.

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