Each billing cycle now arrives like an indictment, a monthly reminder that the ordinary citizen must pay for the extraordinary failures of those meant to regulate.
The latest episode — a Rs215 million hit to consumers — reveals yet again how regulatory complacency and contractual negligence quietly conspire against public interest. Beneath the jargon of “fuel cost adjustments” and “market volatility” lies a simple truth: Pakistan’s energy regulators have allowed private defaults to become public debt.
The Coal Default That Slipped Through the Cracks
The case centres on a Punjab-based coal power plant that found itself stranded last December when its long-term coal supplier defaulted on deliveries. The agreement, once celebrated for securing a $2.51 per tonne discount, collapsed under the flimsy pretext of “force majeure.”
The supplier cited congestion at South Africa’s Richards Bay Coal Terminal and even pointed to the India-Pakistan flare-up as reasons for non-performance. The absurdity was glaring: other suppliers fulfilled their obligations during the same period, and Pakistan’s industries continued to import coal uninterrupted.
Even more revealing was the fact that while the supplier reneged on its commitment to the power plant, it continued supplying coal elsewhere — a move that suggests economic opportunism rather than genuine logistical crisis.
A Regulatory Green Light to Default
Instead of enforcing the contract’s penalty clauses — which required the supplier to bear replacement costs and forfeit its performance guarantee — Nepra and CPPA-G did the opposite.
They approved the transfer of the Rs197 million loss directly into consumer tariffs through a June 26, 2025 Fuel Cost Adjustment decision.
This was not regulation; it was capitulation.
The supplier, still in default, was not only spared from penalty but was allowed to keep bidding. By June, it had won a spot tender again for the same power plant — this time offering a smaller discount and inflicting yet another Rs16 million burden on the public.
It’s a pattern that mirrors a deeper malaise: regulators who act less as watchdogs and more as silent partners to inefficiency.
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The Cost of Weak Oversight
The electricity sector’s failures are often blamed on currency depreciation or capacity payments, but such macro explanations conveniently overlook a far more corrosive element — the decay of contract enforcement.
When regulatory authorities allow private entities to breach agreements without consequence, the entire premise of competitive procurement collapses. Accountability becomes optional; losses become collective.
Earlier this year, Nepra’s own fact-finding committee flagged “anomalies” in coal procurement, identifying single-bidder situations and a near-total absence of competition. The committee called for an independent coal regulator to safeguard consumers from unjustified costs. Eight months later, those recommendations remain filed away — another report collecting bureaucratic dust.
The Illusion of Reform
Every few years, the rhetoric of “energy reform” resurfaces. Committees are formed, inquiries initiated, statements issued — and yet, when the bills arrive, it’s the consumer who bleeds.
The silence from Nepra in response to repeated media queries is not administrative delay — it is institutional indifference. The cost of that indifference now sits folded in every electricity bill, disguised as “adjustment,” “surcharge,” or “fuel cost.”
Until Pakistan’s regulatory bodies learn to protect consumers rather than shield defaulters, the power sector will continue to generate profit for the few and despair for the many.
Electricity may be the product — but accountability remains the missing current.