Oh, the audacity of being a DISCO!

There was a reason the ‘Apna Meter Apni Reading Scheme’ earned public approval. It was not just about giving power back to the people; the real reason for the jubilation was that it took away from power distribution companies the opportunity to be dishonest with their customers.

Now, an official audit has alleged massive irregularities in how consumers were billed in FY24 by state-owned DISCOs—the very same entities that were touted as the cornerstone of the Energy Ministry’s performance in a recently held press conference. If this level of irregularity still resulted in a loss (inefficiencies and under-recovery) of Rs 591 billion by the end of FY24, then heaven help us if these DISCOs had been honest in their affairs.

Meanwhile, the official audit—details of which have yet to be released publicly—has alleged that eight DISCOs, including one that is a front-runner for the government’s privatisation agenda, were involved in overbilling consumers to hide their line losses, electricity theft, and other inefficiencies.

These eight are out of the ten DISCOs operating in this sector. The argument for verifying DISCOs’ data and information through external auditors could not have become stronger—every dataset that comes from these DISCOs needs independent scrutiny. The report states that five companies reportedly overbilled 278,649 consumers by Rs 47.81 billion in a single month. More than 900 million extra units were billed to customers during FY24, with no action taken against the officials responsible, the audit reveals. This is roughly 2.5 million units billed irregularly every single day—imagine the level of inefficiencies being masked.

But is it really a surprise?The regulator, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), has already raised these concerns several times in its State of Industry Report. Understand this: these issues often only come to light when consumers raise complaints. In many cases, complaints aren’t even brought to the authorities’ attention. Millions of customers and yet, the lack of accountability is astonishing.

Coming back to the audit. The AGP report attributes the overbilling to incorrect meter readings and violations of the official detection billing policy. These inflated bills were later revised, and refunds—proof of which, according to some media reports, was still not handed over to the AGP office—were issued. Crucially, the report concludes that this was not an accidental oversight but a deliberate attempt to conceal actual line losses and widespread electricity theft.

Rather than addressing the underlying issues or holding responsible officials accountable, DISCOs have reportedly resorted to temporary credit adjustments. No disciplinary action has been taken, exposing a deep lack of transparency and institutional accountability.

More troubling is the revelation that the DISCOs’ management and the Ministry of Energy were made aware of these irregularities and yet failed to take meaningful corrective action. The inaction further underscores systemic governance failures within the power sector.

Interestingly, the report identifies LESCO (Lahore Electric Supply Company) as having the highest number of overbilled consumers—11,996 in total. This is in the political stronghold of the leader of the coalition government.

Separately, and prior to the release of this audit, Minister for Energy Sardar Awais Leghari praised the DISCOs for reducing line losses and power theft. He specifically lauded LESCO for outperforming others in loss reduction. However, this narrative now stands in stark contrast to the findings of the AGP report, which reveal that such improvements may have been achieved through manipulation of billing data rather than genuine operational efficiency.

The issue isn’t just that overbilling took place; what’s worrying is that it seems to have become institutional practice. You cannot overbill millions and pocket billions unless multiple layers of management and stakeholders are involved.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the media coverage on this was that “despite repeated requests, relevant records were not shared with audit teams.” Such audacity!