> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The IMF Asked Guyana for a Budget Target and an Audit Timetable. Guyana Offered a Guidepost. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-imf-staff-report-fiscal-anchor-authorities-views/ - Published: 2026-10-12T03:48:34.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T21:06:28.000Z - Description: IMF Country Report 26/262, published 8 October 2026, runs to 100 pages. Its Authorities' Views sections record what the Board's two-page press release does not: Guyana's government keeps public debt and the NRF ceiling as its fiscal anchor. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: business, Guyana, Public Finance, Oil and Gas, Caribbean **Quick summary:** IMF Country Report 26/262, published on 8 October 2026, runs to 100 pages. Its Authorities' Views sections record what the Board's two-page press release does not: Guyana's government keeps public debt and the NRF ceiling as its fiscal anchor, and offers the measure staff prefer as an additional guidepost. By LCN Business Desk When the IMF concludes an Article IV consultation it publishes two things. One is a press release carrying the Executive Board's assessment, which runs to about two pages and is what gets reported. The other is the staff report, which for Guyana this year runs to 100 pages. The staff report contains a feature the press release has no room for. At the end of each policy section sits a short passage headed **Authorities' Views**, recording what the government said to staff. There are eight of them in Country Report 26/262, dated 18 September 2026 and published on 8 October. Read together, they show a government that agrees with the Fund on almost everything and declines, politely and specifically, on two points. LCN reported the Board's published assessment [on 11 October](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-imf-article-iv-2026-lapse-of-time-cost-oil-audits/). This is what sits behind it. ## What did staff ask for on the budget? A single number to steer by. Staff proposed that "the non-oil primary balance could serve as the main operational target, strengthening gradually over the next decade to a level consistent with a chosen long-run anchor, such as preserving the real per capita value of NRF assets." The non-oil primary balance is what the budget looks like with the oil stripped out. In 2025 it stood at minus 36.9 per cent of non-oil GDP. Staff want that measure to become the thing the budget is set against, tightened year by year for a decade, with the Natural Resource Fund's real per capita value as the long-run destination. They also want the medium-term fiscal framework underpinned by thirty-year NRF projections. Staff gave their reason plainly: "In the absence of explicit targets, expenditures and non-oil primary deficits exceeded budget projections over 2022-24, and future large deviations from staff's baseline path would compromise the objective of preserving the real per capita value of the NRF." That is a finding, not a forecast. The report carries it under a chart headed Fiscal Performance and Outturns, with panels for expenditure overruns and non-oil primary deficit overruns. ## What did the government say? That it already has an anchor, and will consider the Fund's measure alongside it. The report records: "The authorities noted that public debt, together with the NRF ceiling, would remain their **implicit fiscal anchor**." It continues that they "saw merit in considering the non-oil primary balance path **as an additional fiscal guidepost while preserving policy flexibility**, and in further assessing the calibration of medium- and long-term fiscal anchors to Guyana's development needs and absorptive capacity." The gap is in the nouns. Staff asked for a **main operational target**. The government offered an **additional fiscal guidepost**, with policy flexibility preserved. The government also told staff it intends to maintain the NRF withdrawal ceiling, which staff note was "already raised once in 2024", and expects fiscal deficits to narrow gradually over the medium term. ## Why does the difference matter? Because the two anchors move in opposite directions when oil revenue rises. A debt ceiling and an NRF withdrawal ceiling both get easier to satisfy as the economy and the fund grow. Guyana's public debt is 28.9 per cent of GDP, which the Board describes as among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere, and the authorities noted in the report's debt analysis that NRF balances "stood at 110 percent of Guyana's public external debt at end-2025". Measured that way, there is a great deal of headroom, and the gap between Guyana's growth and the rest of the region's is [wide enough to make the comparison awkward](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/world-bank-lac-update-guyana-23-7-caribbean-growth-gap-2026/). A non-oil primary balance target does the opposite. It ignores the oil entirely, so a rising oil price gives no additional room at all. It is a harder constraint by design, which is why staff proposed it and why preserving flexibility is a coherent reason to resist it. Neither position is unreasonable. They are simply different instruments, and the press release records only the one staff recommended. ## What did staff ask for on the cost-oil audits? A date. The Board's published priorities open with "resolving outstanding cost-oil audits". The staff report is more specific. Citing "the macro-criticality of the audits, including their potential fiscal implications and foundational role for broader governance reforms and accountability", it says "the authorities should adopt a **precise timetable** for the closure of cost oil audits and publish updated audits of all main SOEs." It adds that updating audits of government agencies is "a key recommendation of the 2023 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report, published in December 2025." The government's recorded answer does not contain a date. It "underscored their commitment to resolve outstanding cost-oil audits, **including through arbitration**", and noted that while financial audits of public enterprises and agencies were generally timely, there was scope to improve the timeliness of financial reporting and strengthen audit capacity in oil and gas. Arbitration is a route, not a timetable, and it is already running: LCN reported [the US$214 million in disputed costs referred to an ICC sole expert](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-exxon-214-million-cost-oil-audit-icc-sole-expert-2026/). What staff asked for was the schedule by which the audits close. What the report records is the mechanism by which one of them is being contested. ## Where else did the two sides differ? On the exchange rate, and barely anywhere else. The Board said the current regime "remains appropriate, while greater flexibility could be considered over the medium term". The authorities, per the report, said the stabilised regime "continued to serve the economy well" and that they "remained open to exploring the merits of greater exchange rate flexibility over time". That is agreement on the present and a courteous hold on the future. On monetary policy the government told staff conditions were "relatively tight given rapid economic growth, even as excess liquidity persisted owing to shallow financial markets", and that while it agreed on strengthening the toolkit through longer-term bonds, "the immediate focus remained on growth and financial inclusion". Everywhere else the record is agreement. The authorities shared staff's view on the growth outlook. They expressed "strong interest" in building a macroprudential framework and reaffirmed commitments from the 2016 Financial Sector Assessment Programme, including a real estate price index. They flagged the need to enhance cybersecurity standards as digitalisation advances. They set out progress on GDP rebasing, with an updated series expected by 2027, and plans for regular labour force surveys and a new household budget survey. The report also records the banking position at end-2025: a capital adequacy ratio of 17 per cent against the regulatory requirement, liquid assets at 46 per cent of total assets, and non-performing loans down to 1.3 per cent of total loans with provisioning covering 90 per cent. One detail from a footnote is worth lifting. The perimeter of goods exempt from tax now includes fuel, electricity, water, medical supplies, farming inputs including machinery, basic food necessities, heavy duty transportation, residential properties, sports and technology equipment, and back-up generators. The 2026 Budget added locally made furniture, jewellery and security equipment. ### What the title card shows The card sets the headline against a panel comparing what IMF staff proposed with what Country Report 26/262 records the Guyanese authorities as saying. On the budget anchor, staff proposed the non-oil primary balance as "the main operational target"; the authorities offered it as "an additional fiscal guidepost while preserving policy flexibility" and keep public debt and the NRF ceiling as their implicit anchor. On the cost-oil audits, staff asked for "a precise timetable for the closure of cost oil audits"; the authorities committed to resolving them "including through arbitration". The panel also gives the non-oil primary balance at minus 36.9 per cent of non-oil GDP in 2025, public debt at 28.9 per cent of GDP, and NRF balances at 110 per cent of public external debt at end-2025. Three figures run along the foot of the card: 100, the number of pages in the staff report; 8, the number of Authorities' Views sections it contains; and 2, the number of substantive disagreements they record. The flag block reads IMF COUNTRY REPORT 26/262, THE AUTHORITIES' VIEWS, AND WHAT THE PRESS RELEASE LEFT OUT. ## Frequently Asked Questions What is an Authorities' Views section in an IMF staff report? A short passage at the end of each policy section recording what the member country's government said to IMF staff during the consultation. Country Report 26/262 on Guyana contains eight of them. They do not appear in the Executive Board press release. What fiscal anchor does Guyana use? The report records the authorities as saying that public debt, together with the Natural Resource Fund withdrawal ceiling, would remain their implicit fiscal anchor. IMF staff proposed the non-oil primary balance as the main operational target instead. Did Guyana reject the IMF's proposal? No. The authorities are recorded as seeing merit in considering the non-oil primary balance path as an additional fiscal guidepost while preserving policy flexibility, and in further assessing the calibration of fiscal anchors against development needs and absorptive capacity. What did the IMF ask for on cost-oil audits? That the authorities adopt a precise timetable for closing the cost-oil audits and publish updated audits of all main state-owned enterprises, citing the audits' potential fiscal implications. The authorities committed to resolving the audits including through arbitration. How large is Guyana's non-oil primary deficit? Minus 36.9 per cent of non-oil GDP in 2025, projected to widen to minus 37.7 per cent in 2026\. Staff noted that expenditures and non-oil primary deficits exceeded budget projections over 2022 to 2024 in the absence of explicit targets.