What "Friendly Country" Buried the 2020 Power Sector Inquiry Report?
The phone call that reversed Pakistan's biggest accountability moment in twenty-five years, and the country that almost certainly made it
By Asad Baig · Lahore · April 2026 · Approx. 5-min read
The question worth answering
In April 2020, the federal cabinet of Pakistan voted to publish the Power Sector Inquiry Report. The decision was reversed within days following pressure from a country referred to in subsequent journalism only as "a friendly country."
The friendly country was never officially named. The phone call was never publicly acknowledged. The report has remained buried for six years.
This article walks through the evidence that points to the answer. It is, in my view, overwhelming. But you should look at the evidence and form your own judgement.
The chronology
April 2020. The inquiry report, prepared by the Muhammad Ali committee over the previous fifteen months, is submitted to Prime Minister Imran Khan.
April 21, 2020. The federal cabinet meets to consider the report. Cabinet members named in the report (Razak Dawood, Nadeem Babar, Khusro Bakhtiar, Omar Ayub Khan) are excluded due to conflict of interest. The remaining cabinet members vote to publish the report. The press release is issued.
Days later. According to multiple journalistic accounts, a message is received from a "friendly country." The message conveys that publication would not be in line with the spirit of bilateral relations. The message is firm. The message is conveyed at the highest level.
The Prime Minister is briefed by Asad Umar (a senior cabinet member) and by Omar Ayub Khan (the Federal Energy Minister whose own family was named in the report). The two officials report on the friendly country's concerns.
The decision to release the report is reversed. No formal announcement is made. The report stays buried. As of April 2026, six years later, the full report has, to public knowledge, never been officially released.
I have written about the broader inquiry story at The 2020 Inquiry Report That Was Buried.
The evidence
The friendly country was not named. But the pattern of evidence points overwhelmingly in one direction.
The report's most damaging findings concerned Chinese plants. Sahiwal coal IPP had excess capital costs of approximately Rs. 32.46 billion documented. Port Qasim had similar findings. Combined excess payments to these two CPEC plants alone were estimated at $2.5 to $2.6 billion over the contract life. If the report had been made public and acted upon, the consequences for Chinese state-owned enterprises and the global Belt and Road Initiative would have been severe.
China had previously expressed concerns about CPEC renegotiation. Officials had communicated through diplomatic channels that any such renegotiation would not be welcome.
Imran Khan's diplomatic trajectory after the report's suppression supports the conclusion. When he visited Beijing during this period, he was reportedly only able to meet President Xi Jinping on the final day of his four-day visit. An unusual diplomatic signal of displeasure widely noted at the time.
No other country had a comparable interest in suppression. The Western donors (United States, UK, Germany) had been actively pushing for power sector reform for years. The Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar) had no specific stake in Pakistani IPP findings. The IMF was actively encouraging restructuring. Only one major bilateral partner stood to lose substantially from the report's findings.
The pattern of subsequent Pakistani government behaviour is consistent with the conclusion. The Shehbaz Sharif government has terminated five domestic IPPs and renegotiated fourteen others since October 2024. None of the renegotiated plants have been Chinese. CPEC IPP renegotiation has not been seriously raised at any level. The exclusion of CPEC plants from all subsequent reform efforts indicates that whoever made the original phone call retained leverage that no Pakistani government has been willing to challenge.
What I cannot prove
I cannot prove definitively that the friendly country was China. I am not in a position to subpoena diplomatic cables. The Pakistani Foreign Office has never officially confirmed or denied the identity of the country. Pakistani journalists have published the conclusion based on multiple sources but no published source includes the specific text of the diplomatic communication.
What I can say is that every piece of available public evidence points in one direction. And the pattern of Pakistani government behaviour in the six years since the report was suppressed is consistent only with the conclusion that whoever made the phone call had the kind of strategic leverage over Pakistan that only one country in the world possesses.
THE EVIDENCE IN ONE BOX
The report's most damaging findings concerned Chinese CPEC plants ($2.5-2.6 billion in excess capital costs). China had previously expressed concerns about CPEC renegotiation. Imran Khan's subsequent Beijing visit included an unusual diplomatic snub. No other country had a comparable interest in suppression. Subsequent Pakistani government behaviour has consistently excluded CPEC from all reform efforts. The conclusion that the friendly country was China is overwhelmingly supported by the pattern of evidence, even though no Pakistani government has officially confirmed it.
Why it matters
The 2020 report's suppression is, in some ways, the most disturbing single episode in the Pakistani electricity story.
It shows that Pakistani institutions can come close to genuine accountability. The committee did its work. The cabinet voted to publish. The recommendations were specific and actionable.
It shows that Pakistani institutions can be overruled by foreign pressure. A phone call reversed a cabinet vote. The process of accountability that had reached the publication stage was halted by external intervention.
It shows that Pakistani citizens can be denied information about how their money is being spent, in their name, by people they did not elect. The report, six years on, remains buried. The public has not been informed of its specific findings, except through leaked summaries.
The 2020 episode is, in microcosm, why I describe the IPP question as not just an economic problem but a democratic one. The question is not only how much the consumer pays. The question is also whether the consumer has a right to know what they are paying for and to whom.
I have written about this at length at my pillar on the IPP system.
What you should take away
Two things.
The friendly country was almost certainly China. The official identification has never been made. The pattern of evidence is overwhelming. You can form your own conclusion based on the evidence above.
The suppression mattered more than the suppressor. Whether the friendly country was China specifically or, less plausibly, some other actor, the deeper issue is that Pakistani democratic processes were overruled by external intervention. That fact, more than the specific identity, is what every Pakistani citizen should remember.
Now you know what the evidence says. Pass it on.
Thank you for reading.
, Asad Baig, Lahore, April 2026
Frequently asked questions
Was the friendly country that buried the 2020 inquiry report China? The official identification has never been made by any Pakistani government. The available public evidence points overwhelmingly to China: the report's most damaging findings concerned Chinese CPEC plants, China had previously expressed concerns about renegotiation, Imran Khan's subsequent Beijing visit was reportedly diplomatically chilly, and the pattern of Pakistani government behaviour since the report's suppression has consistently excluded CPEC plants from all reform efforts.
When did the cabinet vote to publish the report? April 21, 2020. The vote was reported approvingly by senior journalists at the time. A press release was issued indicating the cabinet's decision to publish.
When was the decision reversed? Within days of the cabinet vote, following diplomatic communication from a "friendly country." The reversal was never formally announced. The earlier press release was simply not followed up.
Can the report be published now? Yes, in principle. The report exists. Civil society organisations have requested it under right to information laws. Their requests have been rejected or ignored. Publication would require a Pakistani government willing to override the original foreign pressure. No such government has emerged in six years.
Sources and notes
- Power Sector Inquiry Report 2020 (ARY News mirror)
- Pakistan Today, Power scam report to be made public, cabinet decides (21 April 2020)
- The Diplomat, China in Pakistan's Power Sector: The Hidden Costs (January 2025)
- Multiple Dawn, Express Tribune, and The News reports on the cabinet meeting and subsequent suppression
- IEEFA Reports on Pakistan Power Sector by Haneea Isaad (2024-2025)
Related reading from Asad Baig
The cluster post this answers under
The pillar
Sibling long-tail explainers
- Who Is Muhammad Ali, the Man Behind the 2020 Inquiry?
- Why Were the 1994 IPP Contracts Signed in US Dollars?
Asad Baig