Govt says NHA operates with Rs43bn surplus, rejects loss-making labels

The government on Monday pushed back against claims that the National Highway Authority (NHA) is a loss-making state-owned enterprise, asserting that the authority is “not experiencing actual financial losses”.

“The recent reports labelling the NHA as a loss-making State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) are rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of accounting entries versus actual operational health,” read a statement.

“While news outlets cite a staggering deficit, a closer look at the audited financial statements indicates that the NHA is not experiencing actual financial losses. For FY25, NHA reported a robust net operating income of Rs43.612 billion, calculated from Rs122.021 billion in revenue against Rs78.409 billion in operating expenditures.”

The remarks come after a report released by the Federal State-Owned Enterprises annual aggregate report on SOEs fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 to June 2025), which showed that the NHA incurred the highest loss at Rs294.9 billion.

FY25 SOE losses hit Rs832.848bn mark

The government was of the view that the reported “accounting deficit” of Rs288.541 billion arises almost entirely from non-cash entries—specifically Rs133.771 billion in depreciation and Rs193.488 billion in finance costs—which do not involve any direct cash outflows.

It maintained that the NHA has evolved into a financially independent entity “that no longer imposes a burden on national fiscal resources”.

It added that, unlike many other organisations, the NHA does not receive any budgetary allocation for its administrative expenses and manages these entirely from its own resources.

“This financial autonomy extends to its workforce; the NHA does not rely on the Federal Government for employee post-retirement benefits.

“Instead, it has established its own independent pension and retirement funds, governed by a Board of Trustees and audited according to prevailing standards,” it said.

Furthermore, while 50% of the NHA network serves as a non-revenue-generating Public Service Obligation, NHA successfully finances the maintenance of the entire network through its own generated income.

Through the ADB-funded SOE Transformation Programme, the NHA is currently rationalising its debt by classifying projects based on their commercial viability. These measures reinforce the fact that the NHA’s operations remain cash-positive and are a testament to its financial resilience, it added.