AS Guyana’s economy continues to post impressive numbers, particularly outside the oil sector, it was perhaps inevitable that critics would search for ways to diminish or distort that success.
The latest claim making the rounds is that Guyana’s non-oil economic growth is being driven primarily, even artificially, by government spending.
President Dr Irfaan Ali has rightly described this argument as “comical,” and more importantly, as a clear demonstration of how poorly basic macroeconomics is understood in some quarters of the national discourse.
At the heart of the President’s rebuttal is a fundamental point that should not need repeating: Gross Domestic Product measures production, not payments.
GDP grows when goods are produced and services are delivered, when construction expands, agriculture yields more, factories manufacture, transport moves goods, and trade deepens. Government spending, by itself, is not a production sector.
It only enters GDP calculations when it translates into real economic activity, when a bridge is built, a road rehabilitated, materials supplied, or workers employed.
This distinction matters, especially in a country undergoing rapid structural transformation. The steady growth of Guyana’s non-oil GDP is not theoretical; it is visible on the ground and measurable in output.
Construction cranes, expanded farming activity, manufacturing growth, and increased transport and trade are not accounting tricks, they are evidence of a real economy producing more than it did before.
The President’s critics also ignore a basic accounting reality: there is no framework, anywhere, that allows a government to simply spend money and inflate GDP figures without corresponding production.
Without goods being produced, services rendered, jobs created, and value added, GDP does not move. This is not a political argument; it is how national accounting works.
The data reinforce this reality. Non-oil GDP growth rose from 4.6 per cent in 2021 to 14.3 per cent in 2025, averaging about 13 per cent between 2022 and 2025. In 2025 alone, non-oil sectors accounted for nearly 20 per cent of total economic expansion.
These are not numbers driven by paper transactions; they reflect businesses producing more, workers earning more, and sectors expanding across the economy.
Where government spending does play a role, legitimately, is as a catalyst for growth, not its sole driver. Capital investments such as the Dr Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara Harbour Bridge and the construction and rehabilitation of hinterland roads reduce travel time, cut fuel costs, improve connectivity, and unlock productivity, particularly for miners, loggers, farmers, and small businesses.
These projects lower the cost of doing business and encourage private investment, which in turn fuels sustained production.
At the same time, recurrent spending serves a different but equally important purpose: easing short-term pressures on households.
By increasing disposable income, reducing cost-of-living burdens, and providing targeted support, such as grants to farmers, assistance to children, and help for vulnerable families, the government helps stabilize demand and protect livelihoods, especially during periods of transition.
The real issue, then, is not whether government spending exists, every functioning economy has it, but whether that spending is strategic, productive, and people-centred. In Guyana’s case, the evidence suggests it is being used to build resilience, expand opportunity, and lay the foundation for long-term prosperity.
As President Ali noted, political “parroting” will continue. But national conversations about the economy deserve more than slogans and surface-level claims.
They require an honest engagement with facts, fundamentals, and the lived reality of an economy that is producing more, employing more, and moving, decisively, beyond myth and misinformation.