‘2026 Budget: Chock-Full of Numbers That Choke’- Lall

By GHK Lall- The 2026 budget is here, and it is so chock full of number that it is choking. Amid the numbers that roll like the thunderous blare of hit records, there is the need to be as sober as a judge, if only to remain stable on the feet. There are those few who every right to be carried away by the 2026 budget. And, there are the masses of Guyanese who will have to be carried out on a stretcher to an ambulance, so shocking the numbers for them are, in a budget that rocks and rolls at high volume. I hear something else also. People lamenting. Guyanese crying: not again! How can the government do this to we! Again.

All it takes is a first scan. An economy that continues its breathtaking trajectory: 19.3% growth in 2025, with a vibrating 16.2% projected for this year. Citizens in countries with half of that 19.3% growth from last year get more, do better than Guyanese. A budget genius such as Guyana’s Money Maestro, Dr. Ashni K. Singh, couldn’t have done so poorly in catering to the needs (needs not wants) of dirt-poor Guyanese.

Well, he did, didn’t he”? Yet again. Congratulations, good, caring doctor. He should inform dejected pensioners how they can spend wisely, so as to get the most out of their $5,000 per month increase. Taking a wider leap, elections’ promises are a lovely creature; budget provisions are a jackass dressed up as a milking cow for Guyanese straddling destitution’s line. Little milk.

Every line I glanced at in this new budget resounded with a consistent refrain. The sugar sector was up by 26.5%. The rice sector experienced a 15.7% rise. The seafood sector recorded a 6.6% jump. The mining segment of the economy, with gold leading the way, registered 11.6%. Bauxite enjoyed a sweet 53.4% leap, and even forestry nudged ahead at 2.7%. Growth! Vibrant growth! Still more growth, and almost all over in the sectors of the national economy. Yet the man-in-the-street is trapped in stagnation. Yet the woman whose purse is so thin, it could pass as a sheet of face tissue (or toilet paper), is drowning in shortages, while the national economic numbers are so overwhelming, almost uniformly.

What is wrong here in this great, rich oil bonanza nation? What is seen wrong and read wrong in this year’s budget? Even if that were so, do I tell those who struggle and suffer, that it is their imagination? That they expect too much from government? That they look for too much from their oil money? I don’t think so. For the numbers in the stomach, and the numbness before the family, notwithstanding caring cash provisions, confront and clash with all the splendid numbers that Dr. AK Singh put out. For when the budget pieces of 2026 are analyzed and assessed, it is as if Dr. Singh, in deference to his name, took an AK-47 to Guyanese hopes, and blew them up, then scattered the fragments all over the Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge.

Another trillion-dollar budget, and now after over six trillion dollars in budgets under the PPP Govt, and the harsh hand of Dr. Singh, poor men and poor women and poor people children in Guyana take to the roads for a second job, take to family their woes, for the cushion of a helping hand to tide them over. Until next month. Half a trillion dollars to be taken from the Oil Fund to support the budget, and the most that the PPP Govt can do for bottom of the barrel Guyanese is throw them a few insulting scraps, to say that the government did something. Plenty according to its agents. It is what feeds Pres. Ali and Dr. Singh saying with a straight face: see huh much abee duh fuh ayuh. Ayuh mek sure ayuh remembah is who gee ayuh aaal dis monee…

Consider this: $196.1 billion for road and bridge construction. Now that’s real money in a real oil country. Yet that level of billions, or half of such, cannot be provided for rank-and-file Guyanese so that they can keep their head above water in killer price environment. Checkout the actual cash allocations earmarked to reach into the hands of those citizens on the lower tiers of the economic pyramid, and all that can be seen are pittances. This is not a caring government. It is callous government with heartless leaders, who are having the best of times with the people’s money. In short, from the perspective of impoverished Guyanese, this year’s budget is a bomb.