LAHORE: The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League Vice President Hafiz Talha Saeed has demanded a forensic audit of agreements with independent power producers and an end to payments for generation capacity that is never dispatched, saying consumers were being squeezed by inflated bills and continued load-shedding.
According to a statement issued on Thursday, Mr Talha said Rs 13.397 trillion had been paid to IPPs over the past five years, including Rs 7.275 trillion for electricity actually supplied and roughly Rs 6.4 trillion in capacity payments. He questioned the justification for paying plants that were not generating.
The headline figure tracks official data reported in July and August 2026, which put total IPP payments over five years at Rs 13,397 billion, of which Rs 7,275 billion was for electricity supplied. The same data indicated that roughly 70 per cent of the amount collected per unit from consumers is transferred to IPPs, and that capacity payments continued to rise even as generation costs fell.
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has separately assessed that annual capacity payments reached around Rs 2.1 trillion in 2024, prompting the government to renegotiate power purchase agreements under an IMF directive. Five IPP contracts were terminated effective October 2024, and further contracts have faced conversion to take-and-pay terms.
Mr Talha said load-shedding continued despite an installed capacity of around 46,000MW, and that some 5,500MW of plants remained offline for want of LNG. “The government’s failure to procure LNG in time has pushed consumers back into darkness,” he said.
Independent assessments place installed capacity for capacity-payment purposes at about 36,397MW against a peak demand near 25,000MW for FY2024-25 — meaning more than a third of the paid-for system sits idle. The gap between that figure and the 46,000MW cited by Mr Talha reflects different bases of measurement; total national installed capacity across all sources is the higher number.
Mr Saeed said consumers who had invested savings in solar to cut bills were hit again when the government replaced net metering with net billing and reduced buyback rates.
That change is documented. In February 2026, NEPRA replaced net metering with net billing under the Prosumer Regulations 2026, cutting the buyback rate for new connections to Rs 8.13 per unit and shortening contract terms from seven years to five. Domestic grid tariffs over the same period run at roughly Rs 45 per unit off-peak and Rs 60 at peak before taxes — a spread that sharply lengthens payback periods for new rooftop systems.
“People cannot be kept trapped indefinitely between inflation, load-shedding and unaffordable electricity bills,” Mr Talha said, urging the government to move beyond claims of reform.
The Power Division and NEPRA have not responded to the party’s demands. The Lahore Times has sought comment.
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