EDITORIAL: For decades, Pakistan’s bureaucracy has demonstrated a remarkable ability to blunt reform efforts whenever they threaten entrenched privileges. In fact, it has refined resistance to change into a veritable art form, expertly placing institutional turf and bureaucratic prerogatives above the efficiency and accountability the country so urgently requires. The latest such example has surfaced in the power sector. According to media reports, despite a clear decision taken last month by the National Task Force on Energy and Power Minister Awais Leghari to consolidate several obsolete state-owned generation companies (GENCOs), the reform has encountered resistance from within the power bureaucracy. The task force had called for the merger of four GENCOs – the 660MW Jamshoro unit, the 747MW Guddu plant, the 525MW Nandipur facility and Lakhra Power — along with their parent company, the Genco Holding Company Limited (GHCL), into the relatively lean and modern National Power Parks Management Company. The logic behind the decision was straightforward. The old, oil-based power plants of these GENCOs had already been shut down or auctioned off, leaving the companies themselves largely hollowed-out administrative shells. Indeed, hundreds of their employees had already been temporarily transferred to distribution companies until March 31 following the closure of the plants they once operated. With the GENCOs’ operational role effectively extinguished, their continued existence as standalone entities served little practical purpose beyond preserving bureaucratic hierarchies. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is precisely why the task force’s directive remains unimplemented. Despite being instructed to issue a formal notification initiating the merger and winding-up process for the GENCOs, the Power Division and the GHCL have yet to act. Instead, the system appears to be closing ranks around the corporate structures that sustain bureaucratic privilege. Officials occupying positions on the boards of the GENCOs and GHCL seem intent on safeguarding the benefits that accompany these posts – official vehicles, fuel allocations, support staff and other allowances – even as the operational rationale for the companies themselves has largely disappeared. Even more telling is the nature of the alternatives being floated by the bureaucrats manning these entities. They are reportedly proposing that the GENCOs simply be consolidated under GHCL itself, which would preserve the existing corporate structures while creating additional staffing requirements of around 55 to 60 personnel at the GENCOs and the GHCL headquarters. Such suggestions border on the absurd. These companies have already ceased meaningful operations. Their ageing plants have either been shut down or are in the process of disposal after years of low efficiency, high operating costs and persistently poor performance. With the facilities they once managed no longer functioning, the logic of maintaining redundant corporate structures is simply untenable. It should be a no-brainer that such entities no longer function as independent organisations. Yet the incentives to prolong the status quo remain powerful. The GHCL’s chief executive officer and board continue to function at full tilt, reportedly holding multiple meetings a week. Each sitting brings with it compensation of at least Rs100,000 per board member, in addition to travel and boarding expenses. This steady stream of benefits is made possible only by keeping these otherwise purposeless organisations alive. In such circumstances, the reluctance to move swiftly on the merger becomes easier to understand. Conduct of this kind is no small part of why the power sector today is in its current state: grossly inefficient, dysfunctional and embroiled in financial turmoil that costs the exchequer trillions each year. It also perfectly encapsulates why reform, not just of the energy sector but across the broader economy has proved to be such a tall order. Until such entrenched resistance is confronted head-on, even the most sensible reforms will continue to falter. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026