Guyana’s foreign indebtedness tops $235B – Harmon

The Guyana Government’s external debt stands currently at just about 6 billion, while its internal indebtedness is .1 billion.
This information was disclosed on Friday by Minister of State Joseph Harmon, during a post-Cabinet press briefing.

Minister Harmon at the time disclosed too that Finance Minister Winston Jordan had in fact completed and submitted to Cabinet a report on Guyana’s public debt in 2015.
The Minister used the occasion to point out that the report was compiled by the debt management division of the Finance Ministry.
Substantive Minister Jordan had this past week hailed the report as historic and a first in Guyana.
“It is the first time ever a medium-term debt report has been prepared and presented. It looks at the last five years, 2015 back and I hope when it becomes well circulated it will put pain to a lot of irrational comments about the public debt which is being bandied about.”
Harmon, in disclosing that the report has since gained the attention of Cabinet, said it was prepared in keeping with Government’s responsibility for the effective management of its public debt and was not in fact prepared as a requirement of any law.
“Cabinet in accepting the report commended the Minister of Finance for making it available even though it was not a specific requirement under our law… it is in keeping with international best practice.”
According to Minister Harmon, the document will be laid in the National Assembly shortly and would possibly be subjected to a debate.
Harmon told media operatives that it was felt that the report itself promotes transparency in debt management and good governance in the country.
The matter of Guyana’s public debate drew the ire of Minister Jordan who recently lashed out at the Auditor General over his documentation of the fact that Guyana had failed to honour its debts last year by some $20 billion.
Guyana, he said, “is up to date with every single creditor except those of the Paris Club with which we have not been able to reach agreement. Under the Paris Club terms we cannot accept less than 90 per cent write-off of any outstanding bilateral debt. Some of these countries are not willing to give us 90 per cent. In the case of one country, they wouldn’t agree to give one per cent so for those countries we cannot have a settlement. Every creditor is paid on time; we have not defaulted on any creditor’s debt.”
In that 2015 Report, it is highlighted that Central Government’s current (recurring) expenditure was under the 2015 budget allocation by $25.8 billion.
This shortfall, according to the Auditor General, was mainly due to $20.3 billion under Public Debt, for servicing of loans, which was not utilised.
The remaining amounts that were not utilised were $2 billion for the Guyana Elections Commissions (GECOM) hosting of Local Government Elections which was not held that year; $1.2 billion which was unspent by the Finance Ministry; $280 million not used by the Ministry of the Presidency; and another $658 million allocated to the Public Health Ministry for activities not fully executed.