NEPRA’s FY24 Performance Evaluation Report is out, and the results are depressingly predictable. Pakistan’s power distribution companies (DISCOs) have once again set the bar low—and then tripped over it. Nearly every performance indicator has worsened, some tumbling to levels last seen six or seven years ago. The state of affairs isn’t just dismal; it’s downright embarrassing.

The twin plagues of transmission and distribution (T&D) losses and lower billing recovery ratios continue to wreak havoc. Both metrics have deteriorated not just from last year but also compared to five years ago. The reasons aren’t hard to find. Sharp upward adjustments in consumer tariffs were always going to lead to higher losses and lower recoveries. That was the forecast—the reality is even uglier. The collective financial hit from missed T&D targets and under-collected bills has reached an eye-watering Rs662 billion. That’s not just a record; it’s nearly three times what it was five years ago.

All this despite years of heavy investment aimed at improving performance. Multilateral programs have poured hundreds of billions into reducing losses and improving collections. The results? A few glossy reports and some excellent PowerPoint slides. On the ground, the situation has only deteriorated. To add insult to injury, the very institutions funding these programs are also pushing for aggressive tariff hikes and new surcharges, touting them as the silver bullet for sectoral woes. Here’s a spoiler: pricing alone hasn’t worked before, and it won’t work now.

Service delivery metrics have taken a nosedive, too. Load-shedding duration and frequency of interruptions are worse than before. Safety measures are well below acceptable benchmarks. It seems discos have mastered the art of underperformance. And yet, the obsession with national uniform tariffs persists. Even discos that have managed to bring T&D losses down to globally accepted levels are forced to share the burden of their inefficient peers. Rewarding inefficiency has become policy. Everyone loses.

Meanwhile, privatization remains a pipe dream. The single-buyer model—a relic from another era—continues to shackle the sector. There’s no meaningful progress on structural reforms, and the fixation on full cost recovery and legacy debt repayment ensures the sector stays in a perpetual state of crisis. The numbers are staggering, but they are also a testament to what happens when pricing becomes the sole focus of reform.

It’s high time policymakers accept that throwing money and raising tariffs won’t cut it. Without serious structural changes—privatization, targeted tariff rationalization, and performance-based incentives—the dream of a functional power sector will remain just that: a dream. For now, the only thing the sector reliably produces is losses.