KARACHI: K-Electric, issuing its financial results to Pakistan Stock Exchange, declared a loss of Rs. 2.96 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020 because of delayed payments of bills as result of COVID-19 pandemic against profit of Rs. 17.274 billion for the same period last year.

This was primarily in the backdrop of accumulated government receivables and delayed determination of tariff variations which had severely impacted working capital requirements of the company and driven up finance costs by 166 percent to Rs. 16.737 billion vs. Rs. 6.285 billion in financial year 2018-19, said KE release here on Thursday.

In spite of these financial challenges emerged after spread of COVID-19 pandemic, over Rs. 55 billion had been invested by the company across the generation, transmission and distribution businesses.

Both, industrial and commercial consumption reduction on account of COVID-19 lockdown and load-shed exemption for high-loss areas coupled with the mobility restrictions for theft detection activities, impacted the sales mix of the company.

However, despite these constraints caused by the pandemic, transmission and distribution losses were kept under control; showing a marginal increase of 0.6 percent in 2020 compared to previous year.

Similarly, sales growth of 0.5 percent was witnessed during fiscal year 2019-20.

Before COVID-19 spread accelerated, up to March 20, 2020, the company had shown even stronger operational performance with 3.1pc growth in units sent-out as well as 2pc transmission and distribution loss reduction, year-on-year.

With the easing of lockdown since June 2020, KE’s operational performance is on track for fiscal year 2020-21.