Caribbean & Central America - March 2026

At the end of January Guyana’s Finance Minister Ashni Singh presented the largest budget yet to parliament, totalling G$1.558tn (US$7.45bn).

The oil boom is enabling government spending to surge ahead. This is the first budget since the Peoples’ Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/Civic) was re-elected by a landslide in September last year. Dubbed the “Putting People First” budget, it sets out a 12.7% increase in spending on the preceding year. Singh said it “is designed to translate sustained economic expansion into tangible investments that improve livelihoods, strengthen communities, and modernise national infrastructure”. The finance minister said the economy had grown 19.3% in 2025, one of the fastest rates in the world. The non-oil economy, including agriculture, mining, construction, and services, expanded 14.3%. The budget projects overall GDP growth to be 16.2% in 2026.

This year’s government spending plans are dominated by housing (G$159.1bn), education (G$183.6bn), and agriculture (G$113.2bn). A total of G$119.4bn is set aside for infrastructure investment including roads, bridges, and national connectivity. There is also significant social spending, including another pay-out of the National Cash Grant, which transfers around G$100,000 to each Guyanese citizen as a way of ensuring the benefits of the oil boom are shared. The budget also includes tax cuts. The income tax threshold is raised, removing 5,000 people from the tax net. Net property tax on individuals is removed and there are value-added (VAT) reductions for various types of vehicles.

Funding all these payouts is the rise in oil revenues. In less than 10 years Guyana has become Latin America’s fifth largest oil exporter after Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia. In a 20 February press release by Guyana’s department of public information (DPI), Guyana’s natural resources minister, Vickram Bharrat noted that from 2020 to 2025, Guyana, where the discovery of oil in 2015 led to an unrivalled surge in national wealth, was able to raise oil production from 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) to over 900,000 bpd.

The budget was well received, although government critics suggested that revenue projections are over-optimistic. Opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed of We Invest in Nationhood party was cited by the media as saying that approving the largest budget in Guyana’s history will “not automatically produce the best outcomes”. He accused the government of not doing enough to address cost of living pressures (inflation closed 2025 at 2.5%, but food price inflation is higher, at 4.4%). Sherod Duncan, a member of parliament for the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) opposition party, claimed a detailed investigation of the budget revealed “glaring limitations in transparency, reporting, and governance”.

Analysts question why, despite surging revenues, the government has opted to run a non-financial sector deficit which is equivalent to 5.4% of GDP in 2025 on figures cited by accounting firm Ernst & Young. In an editorial in Guyanese daily Stabroek News published on 30 January, Vishnu Bisram, an independent economist, sounded a note of caution on borrowing to fund the budget deficit. Such borrowing he said, is currently sustainable because of long-term projected revenues from oil and mining, “But government has to be careful because the debt is now US$10.3bn and interest payments are climbing rapidly”. He called for a more strategic approach to borrowing, saying the country should borrow less and seek out lower-interest rate loans.