A2ps v4.13 problem or bug ?

Background

I am trying to build a2ps v4.13 from source on a Sun 
workstation (uname=> SunOS ss2005 5.8 Generic_117350-43 sun4u sparc
SUNW,Sun-Fire-V440).
This a corporate IT environment and as a general user, I do not have
write access to /usr.  As a
result, I am attempting to build and install a2ps in my user home
directory, specifically  "$HOME/tools/a2ps" using :

./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/a2ps
make
make install



Problem

The configure, make and make install all appear to run normally.  All
the expected sub directories ( bin, etc, info, share,  ... )
are built and installed under $HOME/tools/a2ps as expected.  However,
when I try to run a2ps , even just "a2ps --version", the program 
quits with an error message indicating that $HOME/tools/etc/a2ps.cfg
could not be found.  *NOTE* the change in path names. 
The "missing" file a2ps.cfg file was installed in $HOME/tools/a2ps/etc
but whatever function opens/reads this file
is looking for it in $HOME/tools/etc/a2ps.cfg.  It looks like the path
to this .cfg file is hardcoded somewhere (maybe in liba2ps ?)
and that path is not the same as where this file is actually installed.


Workaround

Placing symlinks to "$HOME/tools/a2ps/etc"  and to
"$HOME/tools/a2ps/share" at the "$HOME/tools" directory level allows the
program to find these subdirectories and run normally.  

Question

1) Is this a known bug ?  I could not find any indication in the FAQ
that came with the tarball nor on the a2ps home page.
2) Is there a configure option or makefile patch to correct the
mis-match between installed path names and runtime path names ?

Any help would be appreciated.  
Dave Maynard