The Fund and the Bills

Guyana's Ministry of Finance posted its Mid-Year Report 2026 on 14 September. The report is dated 28 August, and two of its numbers sit awkwardly together. The first is growth. Real GDP is estimated to have expanded 33.3 per cent in the first half of the year, the first full six months with four production vessels working the Stabroek Block at once, and the full-year projection is now 20.8 per cent. Oil is paying far better than the budget planned. When Budget 2026 was prepared, the government expected 40 of 309 lifts of profit oil. The report now expects 84 of 326, as the partners' backlog of recoverable costs clears faster than planned. Brent averaged US$92.5 a barrel over the half, 28.9 per cent above the same period of 2025. Petroleum deposits into the Natural Resource Fund are projected at US$6,497.6 million for the year, 136.8 per cent higher than the budget estimate. The second number is revenue. Central government current revenue for January to June came to G$493.9 billion, 0.7 per cent less than a year earlier.

The fund explains the gap. Tax receipts are growing fast. Revenue net of fund withdrawals, forestry payments and carbon credits rose 18.7 per cent to G$279.5 billion, led by corporation and withholding taxes paid by oil and gas companies. What fell was the transfer out of the fund. Appendix E1 records withdrawals of G$212,138 million in the first half against G$249,574.5 million in the same months of 2025, and the fund's own table in Appendix E12 shows US$1,020 million against US$1,200 million. For the full year the withdrawal stays at US$2,374.3 million, the same figure the budget carried, and the withdrawal ceiling in the memorandum line has not moved either. Everything above it stays in the fund. The revised column of Appendix E12 ends 2026 with a closing balance more than double the one the budget projected. The report says as much in its risk chapter. If prices hold, it expects higher oil earnings to improve central government revenues for the upcoming fiscal year. Guyana's fiscal year is the calendar year, so a windfall earned in 2026 reaches the budget in 2027.

Spending has not waited for it. The public sector investment programme has been revised up to G$829.7 billion from G$779.6 billion, mainly for power, housing and public infrastructure. First-half outlays already include G$42.5 billion for the G$100,000 cash grant paid to every person aged 18 and over. The revenue target for the year is unchanged at G$1,066.6 billion. So the whole increase lands on the deficit. Appendix E1 moves the overall deficit after grants from G$448,863.9 million in the budget to G$503,753.2 million, and it moves net domestic borrowing from G$150,642.9 million to G$205,532.1 million. The two revisions match to within G$0.1 million. Foreign lending is running ahead of last year as well. External disbursements were US$447.5 million in the first half against US$130.7 million a year earlier. Appendix F shows total public and publicly guaranteed debt rising from US$7,742.9 million at the end of 2025 to US$8,573.1 million at the end of June.

Holding oil money in the fund while borrowing at home is a deliberate choice, and on the report's own figures a cheap one for now. Treasury bills make up 84.4 per cent of domestic debt. Yields on 91-day, 182-day and 364-day bills sat at 1.10, 0.99 and 1.09 per cent at the end of June, unchanged since December. The exposure is in the maturities. The report records that the entire domestic portfolio refixes within one year, puts its average time to refixing at slightly less than a year, and calls this the 'T-bill effect'. Borrowing that rolls every few months stays cheap for as long as a yield near 1 per cent holds. The debt ratio shows none of this. Public and publicly guaranteed debt was 28.6 per cent of GDP at the end of 2025, on the report's own measure. The Caribbean Debt Tracker carries Guyana at 29.2 per cent for 2026 with growth of 16.2 per cent, both IMF projections, against the Ministry's new 20.8. At the end of June the fund held US$4,294.2 million and total public debt stood at US$8,573.1 million, so the fund was already worth just over half the debt.