Modern energy infrastructure key to economic growth: FTO Coordinator

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Mar, 2026) Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Coordinator Saif-ur-Rehman Sunday said that modern energy infrastructure is key to industrial competitiveness, export growth, urban productivity and employment creation.

Addressing a seminar on “Public-Private Partnerships in Energy” here, he added, power distribution companies, responsible for last-mile delivery, are burdened with high technical losses, weak recovery performance and persistent financial stress. These structural shortcomings have been a central driver of the power sector’s cumulative circular debt.

The Coordinator said, government must rethink public-private partnerships in energy sector for reliable power to industrial production, urban growth, small businesses and household. He said emerging markets offer equally instructive lessons. Brazil’s electricity reforms in the 1990s demonstrate how private participation, under effective oversight, can deliver tangible operational gains.

As private distributors expanded networks and modernized systems, technical and commercial losses declined sharply, while access and service quality improved.

He further said the UK’s privatization of electricity utilities in the late 1980s remains one of the most frequently cited examples of reform done with regulatory clarity. Reliability improved markedly, service benchmarks strengthened and investment levels remained resilient over successive decades.The sustained reductions in outages, underpinned by transparent regulation that protects consumers while providing utilities with the predictable returns necessary for long-term planning.

Saif-ur-Rehman suggested that crystal clear public private partnerships can steer out the country from looming energy crisis and ensure good governance through proper distribution with augumentation of transmission networks on modern scientific lines.