Power Task Force: From Crisis to Correction |
In Pakistan, reform is often judged not by results, but by noise. The louder the criticism, the quicker the dismissal, facts becoming an afterthought in a debate driven more by perception than performance. The Power Task Force, constituted under PM Shehbaz Sharif, has become the latest target of this reflexive skepticism. A chorus of critics many of whom have long remained silent during years of policy inertia now question an initiative that is, in fact, delivering one of the most substantive structural corrections in Pakistan’s power sector in decades. The disconnect between perception and performance is not just striking; it is intellectually untenable.
This is not a story of cosmetic adjustments or bureaucratic reshuffling. It is a story of dismantling entrenched inefficiencies that had been normalized over time. For years, Pakistan’s power sector was held hostage by rigid contracts, idle capacity, and financial leakages that quietly transferred inefficiencies onto the consumer. What the Power Task Force has done is not merely intervene it has disrupted a deeply flawed equilibrium that many had come to accept as irreversible.
Consider the termination of seven expensive power plants, including six furnace oil-based units. These plants had virtually zero electricity off-take, yet continued to receive 100 percent capacity payments. In any rational economic system, such arrangements would be indefensible. Yet, they persisted until now. Their termination is not just a fiscal decision; it is a correction of a systemic distortion that drained national resources for years.
The Power Task Force has done what many deemed........