32 12. It is clear that those not connected to the grid are much more income‐constrained than those connected to the grid.

Table 12: Initial connection payment as multiples of monthly expenditures by electricity spending and grid connection status

||Tot<br>|al household<br>|expenditu<br>|res<br>|Total<br>|household c<br>|ash expend<br>|itures<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Electricity|spending|Grid co|nnection|Electricity|spending|Grid co|nnection|
|Country|Yes|No|Yes|No|Yes|No|Yes|No|
|Angola|0.1|0.2|0.1|0.2|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|
|Botswana<sup>a</sup>|0.6|2.2|0.8|2.4|0.6|2.5|0.8|2.8|
|Burkina Faso|0.6|0.7|0.6|0.7|0.7|1.0|0.7|1.0|
|Côte d'Ivoire|0.7|1.5|n.a.|n.a.|0.8|2.1|n.a.|n.a.|
|Ethiopia|0.9|1.4|1.1|1.4|1.3|3.8|1.5|4.0|
|Ghana|0.5|0.8|0.5|0.8|0.5|1.1|0.6|1.2|
|Madagascar|1.6|4.2|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|
|Malawi|0.3|1.0|0.3|1.0|0.3|1.7|0.4|1.7|
|Mali|0.6|0.8|0.4|0.8|0.7|1.2|0.4|1.2|
|Mozambique|0.0|0.0|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|
|Niger|0.1|0.1|0.0|0.1|0.1|0.2|0.0|0.2|
|Nigeria<sup>b</sup>|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|n.a.|
|Rwanda|0.2|0.9|0.2|0.9|0.2|1.5|0.3|1.5|
|São Tomé and Príncipe|0.2|0.3|n.a.|n.a.|0.2|0.3|n.a.|n.a.|
|Senegal|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|
|Sierra Leone<sup>c</sup>|0.6|1.2|0.6|1.2|0.6|1.4|0.6|1.4|
|South Africa|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|0.0|
|Swaziland|0.0|0.1|n.a.|n.a.|0.0|0.2|n.a.|n.a.|
|Tanzania|0.8|1.3|0.9|1.3|1.0|3.1|1.0|3.2|
|Togo|1.1|2.7|1.1|2.6|1.1|3.5|1.1|3.5|
|Uganda|0.3|0.8|0.3|0.8|0.3|1.5|0.4|1.5|
|Zambia|0.3|1.3|0.3|1.4|0.3|2.6|0.4|2.8|
|Median|0.3|0.8|0.4|0.9|0.3|1.4|0.4|1.5|

_Source_ : World Bank staff calculations based on household survey data. _Note_ : For footnotes a–c, see the previous table. n.a. = not available.

Corruption in the form of bribes extracted add to the cost of using electricity. Surveys in Malawi and Nigeria asked households connected to the grid if they had to pay an “informal fee” over and above the official connection charge to get the connection (free since August 2012 in Nigeria), while the survey in Senegal asked about the general perception of corruption in the government and specifically about the power sector.

The results for Malawi and Nigeria are shown in Figure 8. Bribery was more prevalent in Nigeria. In Malawi, there were too few households in the bottom quintiles for meaningful statistics, but in Nigeria every quintile had enough households sampled. The percentage of households reporting informal payments was lowest in the bottom quintile and highest for the top quintile—that is, those who are most able to pay bribes are also most likely to be asked and pay—although there was no consistent pattern with increasing quintile. Recognizing the pervasive nature of this problem, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission in August 2012 prohibited connection fees and required that new customers be given a list of materials to purchase and provide the utilities with the materials, so as to avoid a “direct exchange” of money between the customer and the utility. The only variable is the length of the connection wire. After the materials are presented and checked by the utility, the utility has 48 hours in which to connect the new customer (NERC