Georgetown — Guyana’s fiscal deficit widened sharply in the first half of 2026, as government spending grew far faster than the money coming in to pay for it, according to figures contained in the Ministry of Finance’s Mid-Year Report 2026.
Central Government expenditure rose 11.5 percent in the six months to June, while current revenue fell 0.7 percent over the same period, a gap that pushed the half-year deficit to $105.6 billion, up from a much smaller shortfall in the same period last year. Including state enterprises and other public bodies, the non-financial public sector deficit reached $108.9 billion.
The widening gap was driven in large part by non-interest current expenditure, the government’s day-to-day running costs excluding debt payments, which jumped 19.7 percent, outpacing even the 18.7 percent growth rate the report highlights for underlying tax revenue once oil-linked transfers are stripped out.
The figures are not presented together or flagged as a trend in the report’s own narrative sections. They emerge only when the separate revenue and expenditure subsections are read side by side and the numbers reconstructed independently.
The deficit widening comes despite Guyana recording real GDP growth of 33.3 percent for the half-year, driven by a fourth offshore oil production vessel coming fully online, underscoring a disconnect between the pace of headline economic growth and the state of government’s own books.
This report is based on publicly available data in the Ministry of Finance’s Mid-Year Report 2026. [Name] contributed analysis. [Outlet] reached out to [economist/ministry] for comment; this story will be updated with any response received.
