In a response before the national assembly, the energy ministry declared a significant victory, announcing that it had reduced its massive circular debt by Rs 9 billion in just six months. At first glance, this sounds like a breakthrough: a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak energy landscape. But let’s not celebrate too soon. When you’re standing before a mountain of Rs 2.6 trillion in circular debt, such developments amount to nothing more than scooping a spoonful from a sinking ship and calling it progress.
The question isn’t whether the number dropped. The question is how and at what cost. Are we witnessing genuine reform, or has this government decided to meet IMF deadlines with creative accounting?
Subsidies have been slashed, tariffs raised, while inflation-battered end users are footing the bill. We hear talk of recovery improvements and reduced losses, but for the average Pakistani, there’s no relief. Bills are higher, outages continue, and trust in the system remains shattered.
Of course, things would have been completely different had the economy finally embarked on a route towards organic progress. But can we close our eyes to the fact that it’s IMF-induced? And while structural reform under IMF guidance is not inherently bad, it becomes problematic when driven by optics rather than ownership. The burden is again passed to households and small businesses, not to the inefficiencies that created this crisis: DISCO mismanagement, unchecked power theft, bloated IPP contracts, and political patronage choking merit-based reform.
Neverending desperate times have made the common man more cautious than ever. They claim they’ve seen this before: temporary “wins” used as talking points while the core rot remains untouched. It does not help the ruling party’s cause that while ordinary Pakistanis are being told to tighten their belts, bloated bureaucracies and elite contracts remain sacred. The problem isn’t just circular debt: it’s circular governance, going in endless loops with no real accountability.
Similarly, as the IMF and other lenders push for macroeconomic indicators, they rarely follow through on ensuring reforms benefit citizens. Where are the safeguards for social protection? Where is the conditionality that insists on institutional reform over consumer pain?
This cannot be business as usual. Pakistanis deserve a power sector that delivers more than just load-shedding schedules and inflated bills. So before we cheer over Rs 9 billion, let’s ask the real question: are we moving forwardor just spinning in circles, again? *