Crooked officials biggest obstacle to DISCO privatization.
TARIQ KHATTAK
Islamabad (December-23-2025)
Business leader and former president of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce Shahid Rasheed Butt said on Tuesday that the circular debt keeps rising due to corruption, despite the government’s claims. He added that the economy suffers to benefit Independent Power Producers, while the public bears the cost.
Addressing an emergency meeting of traders and industrialists, he said that IPPs capacity payments have exceeded Rs 2,091 billion and are likely to reach Rs 2,800 billion in the next fiscal year, pushing electricity tariffs to unbearable levels.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said the share of capacity charges in the per-unit electricity tariff has ranged from Rs 15 to Rs 17, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the total bill. He said several IPPs are engaged in overbilling, misreporting, and abnormal profiteering, while transparent audits are not conducted due to obvious reasons.
He made it clear that the decades-long corruption in the power sector will not be allowed to punish solar consumers. Cutting the net metering buyback rate from Rs 27 per unit to Rs 10 per unit and imposing capacity charges on solar users is an outright injustice. He said official figures show that in just three months the number of solar consumers increased from 226,440 to 283,000, but the real problem is not solar; it is expensive thermal power generation, line losses, and the poor performance of DISCOs.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said the power sector faces excessive corruption, political interference, and incompetence. NEPRA’s 2024 report states that DISCOs have 170,848 faulty single-phase meters and 10,281 faulty three-phase meters. These faulty meters are causing underbilling and overbilling. By July 2024, the country’s circular debt reached Rs 5,730 billion and is rising rapidly.
He said the biggest hurdle in the privatization of DISCOs is corrupt officials who fear reforms and transparency. He called for authorities to conduct a comprehensive review of IPP contracts, identify those responsible for corruption, and prioritize genuine public relief in policymaking. He warned that failure to take these actions would worsen the energy crisis, leading to protests from the public and business community.
He warned that without immediate corrective action the power sector’s financial stress will spill over into inflation employment and export competitiveness. Rising electricity costs are already forcing businesses to shut down and pushing households to cut essential spending worsening economic hardship across the country.
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