Burundi

Getting Electricity in

Burundi

Listed below are the procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain an electricity connection for a newly constructed building.

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Name of Utility: Régie de Production et Distribution d'Eau et d'Electricité (Regideso)
  • City: Bujumbura

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Submit application at one of REGIDESO's customer service centers, await and receive estimate

Applications cannot be submitted online. The customer goes to a REGIDESO customer service office in person and completes a form to request the connection. The documents needed for the application do not need to be notarized. The customer must specify the location of the warehouse. The customer has to provide copies of two documents, the national identification card and the family composition certificate. There is an application fee to be paid. A few days after the external inspection, the customer goes to the office of Regideso to obtain the estimate and to pay it. Once payment is made, REGIDESO will prepare a report of the works. This is an internal report listing all the material necessary for the connection. The report is then transmitted to the department in charge of the actual connection work.

Agency: REGIDESO-Burundi 		16 calendar days BIF 3,000.0
* 2 REGIDESO inspects the site and carries out a feasibility study

REGIDESO sends an engineer to the site to check the information and prepare a pro-forma if the connection is feasible and the energy required is available at that place. The pro-forma is sent to the Supervisor (Superieur hierarchique) for signature. The customer must be at the site for this visit in case they need some clarification. At that time, REGIDESO will measure the distance from the site of the future transformer and the electrical grid. There is no internal inspection and no certificate regarding the safety of the internal wiring has to be submitted. The electrician must be a licensed one, but not necessarily with REGIDESO. The customer takes the entire responsibility regarding the safety of the internal wiring with signing the contract.

Agency: REGIDESO-Burundi 		1 calendar day no charge
3 Purchase the transformer

A transformer needs to be built to accommodate the 140kVA to pass from medium voltage to low voltage. If the utility has transformers in stock, the customer simply goes to the warehouse of the utility and purchases the transformer. If there is no transformer available at the utility, the customer can buy it himself on the market. It takes several months to fabricate a transformer and to import it from Europe.

Agency: Market 		135 calendar days no charge
4 REGIDESO carries out the external connection works and installs the meter

The utility is doing all the external connection works including the design of the connection from the electrical grid to the transformer. The meter is installed before the actual connection takes place. The meter is rented from REGIDESO; a flat fee is paid for this. In the event that the meter breaks, it is replaced free of charge.

Agency: REGIDESO-Burundi 		37 calendar days BIF 73,193,616.9
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
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