Latest update March 26th, 2026 7:55 AM
‘Too little time to scrutinise $1.558T budget’ – opposition warns
(Kaieteur News) – Leader of the Opposition, Azruddin Mohamed, has raised serious concerns over the limited time allocated to examine the government’s massive $1.558 trillion Budget for 2026.
Mohamed who leads the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party and is a first time Member of Parliament (MP) told this newspaper that one cannot possibly expect proper scrutiny of a budget of such magnitude in the same time that was allotted to budgets that measured half the amount.
Leader of the Opposition, Azruddin Mohamed
He explained in an invited comment, “The budget has grown as much as five times larger compared to what it was a couple years ago and the time is indeed short to properly scrutinise the government’s spending because there are so many line items. There are hundreds of billions you have to deal with but we are trying with the limited time.”
The Opposition Leader pointed out that the work of his party to examine government’s expenditure will not be limited to Parliament as efforts will be made to ensure deadline are met for the contracts issued by the administration to ensure citizens benefit fully from various projects. Leader of the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), Amanza Walton-Desir who holds a seat in the National Assembly also shared the view that the time to scrutinise the largest budget ever remains limited. “Yes, the estimates now exceed one trillion dollars, yet the time allocated for parliamentary scrutiny has not expanded to match that scale. That imbalance undermines Parliament’s ability to meaningfully interrogate spending, programme effectiveness, and implementation risks. Budget review is not a formality. When scrutiny is compressed, oversight is weakened, and that is especially troubling when legislators are being asked to approve over a trillion dollars in public expenditure,” Walton-Desir said.
Efforts made by Kaieteur News to contact the lead MP for the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Terrence Campbell proved futile. In this year’s coverage of the Consideration of Estimates, this newspaper frequently observed MPs on the government side in particular referencing the limited time allotted to the Opposition to examine this year’s planned expenditure.
On Monday evening for instance, the Prime Minister himself, Brigadier (retired) Mark Phillips cautioned the Opposition MPs that their time could be exhausted on one question when queries were raised on the increase in salaries for public servants.
Since 2024 calls were made by Opposition party, Alliance For Change (AFC) for the National Assembly to extend the timeline offered to scrutinise the Budget. At that time, former Shadow Minister of Finance, Juretha Fernandes during a party press conference reasoned, “With more money being budgeted for expenditure, the opposition expects to be given more time in the consideration of the estimates, as it is unreasonable to expect any real scrutiny of a budget over one trillion dollars to be done within the same time frame that was used to scrutinise $200 billion budgets.”
In a subsequent telephone interview with this publication, Fernandes said she believes at least two and a half hours per agency is necessary.
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