There is a number that stalks Pakistan like a curse — so large that it drowns our ambitions, mocks our sovereignty, and keeps our ministers flying from one capital to another with begging bowls in hand. That number is the circular debt, the black hole of the power and gas sectors that has turned a proud nation into what our own Prime Minister has called a “global begging bowl.”

Now comes the IMF, with its latest Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment: Pakistan, November 2025 — a document as cold as it is damning. It reads less like an economic analysis and more like a postmortem of a failed state. It does not speak in the language of diplomacy or caution; it presents the unvarnished truth that Pakistan’s energy crisis is not a natural disaster, not bad luck, but a man-made crime scene — the outcome of political patronage, regulatory decay, and a state captured by its own elites.

The fundamental rot begins at the very top — in how we appoint the supposed guardians of our energy sector. It is said that members and chairmen of NEPRA and OGRA are not chosen for merit or competence but for their connections. Every time a chairman’s term expires, there’s no search for better talent; there’s simply another extension, another nod to political loyalty in OGRA, particularly. These regulators were meant to protect the public interest, but over time, they seem to have become shields for the powerful and accomplices in the looting of the exchequer. The tragedy is that this has become so normal, so routine, that no one even flinches anymore.

The IMF report is a rude awakening, a slap across the face of the comfortable........

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