The debt burden

Jul 28, 2026 Editorial, News

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(Kaieteur News) – Guyana should be celebrating one of the greatest economic transformations in modern history. Instead, it is confronting one of its greatest contradictions.

The world sees a country swimming in wealth. International financial institutions praise Guyana as the fastest-growing economy on Earth. Investors scramble to get a foothold. Oil companies trumpet record production. Gold prices continue to climb. On paper, this nation has never looked richer.

Yet on the ground, something is terribly wrong.

How does a country that has produced more than US 10 billion? That is the question every Guyanese should be asking, not in whispers, but loudly.

Before oil production began in 2019, Guyana’s public debt stood at roughly US$1.7 billion. It was a burden, but one the country managed while relying largely on earnings from rice, sugar, timber, bauxite, fisheries and gold. Those traditional industries kept the economy afloat. Government spending was constrained because borrowing came at a cost the country could not easily bear.

Today, the picture should be dramatically different.

Oil has transformed Guyana into one of the world’s newest petroleum producers. Gold prices have reached historic highs. Billions of US dollars are flowing from oil, mining and other natural resources. Logic would suggest that with this unprecedented inflow of wealth, Guyana’s debt should be shrinking, not exploding.

Instead, the opposite has happened.

The debt has multiplied several times over in only a few years. Every new loan places another weight on future generations. Every borrowed dollar becomes another obligation for taxpayers yet unborn. The uncomfortable question is unavoidable: if resource wealth is growing so rapidly, why is borrowing accelerating at an equally breathtaking pace?

No satisfactory public explanation has been offered.

Even more puzzling is what has happened to foreign exchange.

One would expect that a country exporting tens of billions of US dollars in petroleum would have no difficulty supplying US currency to legitimate businesses. Yet importers, manufacturers and retailers continue to complain that obtaining foreign currency has become increasingly difficult. Businesses report delays in paying overseas suppliers. Some describe exhausting searches for US dollars simply to keep their operations functioning.

This is not what prosperity is supposed to look like.

The contradiction grows sharper with every passing year. Guyana exports more wealth than ever before, yet businesses struggle to access foreign exchange. Oil production rises, yet debt climbs. Resource earnings expand, yet borrowing expands alongside them.

That should concern every citizen regardless of political affiliation.

Unfortunately, public debate has become trapped in partisan trenches. Too often, legitimate questions about debt, spending, transparency and long-term fiscal management are dismissed as political attacks rather than treated as matters of national importance.

That serves no one.

Governments come and go. Political parties rise and fall. But debt remains. Today’s loans become tomorrow’s taxes. Today’s borrowing becomes tomorrow’s burden for children who had no voice in approving it.

Cash transfers and grants may provide temporary relief to households struggling with rising living costs. But no government can sustainably distribute borrowed money indefinitely without eventually presenting the bill to taxpayers. True prosperity cannot be measured by one-off payments. It must be measured by whether the country is building lasting wealth while protecting future generations from unsustainable obligations.

History offers sobering lessons. Numerous resource-rich nations have discovered that abundant natural wealth does not automatically produce national prosperity. Without disciplined fiscal management, transparency, strong institutions and public accountability, resource booms can leave countries burdened by debt, economic distortions and missed opportunities.

Guyana still has time to choose a different path.

But that requires citizens who demand answers rather than applause. It requires an Opposition willing to scrutinise government borrowing with facts rather than slogans. It requires institutions prepared to act independently. Above all, it requires a government willing to explain, in clear and measurable terms, why unprecedented resource revenues are coinciding with unprecedented debt accumulation.

Oil should have strengthened Guyana’s financial lungs, not tightened a noose around its economic future.

The country deserves more than glowing international headlines about growth rates. It deserves transparency about where the money is going, why borrowing continues at such a rapid pace, and how today’s resource wealth will translate into tomorrow’s national security.

For if a nation blessed with extraordinary natural wealth cannot free itself from mounting debt, then the question is no longer whether Guyana is becoming rich.

The real question is: who is getting richer while Guyana mortgages its future?

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• Debt burden, economic transformations, Editorial

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