Dear Editor,
At the start of 2026, had Guyana prudently invested the revenues already earned through the Natural Resource Fund (NRF), every Guyanese would today be assured of an annual citizen dividend of approximately $205,000. At the same time, the National Budget would receive about $206 billion each year from investment returns alone – and both of these amounts would continue to grow annually, even if oil production had stopped at the end of 2025. This is not a projection dependent on future oil discoveries or higher output; it is the outcome that disciplined management of revenues already earned could have secured for every citizen.
As the National Assembly debates the 2026 National Budget, the sustainability of cash grants from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) must come under close scrutiny. The Budget presentation confirmed that the current balance of the NRF stands at approximately US$3.5 billion. That figure should prompt a broader public discussion – not only about how much support is provided today, but about whether Guyana is converting its natural resource revenues into permanent national wealth.
In January 2017, long before first oil, I wrote in these pages urging Guyana to adopt an Alaska-style approach: invest the principal from our natural resources and distribute only the returns as a universal citizen dividend. The purpose was simple – to ensure that a finite and volatile resource is transformed into a lasting asset that benefits every Guyanese, not just this generation.
Nine years later, the importance of that choice is clear. Since 2020, Guyana has received approximately US$8.39 billion in oil inflows. Under the current approach, a large portion of that principal has been spent, leaving the NRF at about US$3.5 billion—roughly US$4,000 per citizen.
For comparison, I constructed a simple, generic investment model using Guyana’s actual oil inflows, solely for demonstrative purposes. This model assumes that 80% of funds are invested in a broad equity portfolio and 20% in high-quality bonds – a conservative structure commonly used by large institutional investors. Even this basic approach, which simply invests and preserves the principal, would have produced a fund of approximately US$11.6 billion today, or about US$12,000 per citizen.
Under a disciplined investment approach focused on oil revenues alone, and managed by a top-tier investment fund, the NRF would already stand at approximately US$18.9 billion – equivalent to about US$19,800 per citizen. If Guyana had applied the same discipline across all natural resource revenues, including oil, gold, bauxite and carbon, the fund would now be worth roughly US$25 billion, or about US$26,000 per citizen.
A fund of this size changes what is possible. At US$25 billion, annual investment returns of around 15% — in line with the long-term performance typically achieved by top-tier, diversified investment managers — would generate approximately US$3.75 billion each year. Under a simple 50/25/25 rule, about US$938 million (approximately GYD $206 billion) would flow into the National Budget annually, roughly US$981 per person (about GYD $205,000) would be paid out as a universal citizen dividend every year, and the remaining US$1.875 billion would be reinvested to ensure the fund continues to grow.
Even if returns were lower, in the range of 8–10%, both the citizen dividend and the budgetary support would remain substantial. These outcomes are not speculative or unrealistic; they reflect the kind of long-term results routinely achieved by professionally managed funds that invest broadly and reinvest consistently. Any attempt to correct course now, however, must begin from the much smaller NRF balance of approximately US$3.5 billion.
The implications of these choices matter directly to individual Guyanese. Under an investment-led model, the NRF becomes a permanent source of citizen dividends – paid to every Guyanese, regardless of age or income – without eroding the fund itself. Citizens receive a tangible share of the country’s natural wealth, while the principal continues to grow, ensuring that future generations inherit more, not less. By contrast, spending the principal today removes the possibility of sustained dividends tomorrow.
The National Budget also stands to benefit materially. Rather than relying on volatile oil revenues year by year, an invested NRF can provide stable, predictable support to the budget from investment returns alone. This reduces exposure to oil price shocks, improves fiscal planning, and strengthens long-term investment in health, education, and infrastructure.
The time to act was 2020; the second-best time to correct this is now. The longer-term consequences are easy to understand. Remaining on the current path means the NRF grows slowly and remains modest in size for decades. Changing course allows today’s revenues to compound into permanent national wealth. By 2027, the difference between these approaches is measured in tens of billions of dollars; by 2035, it is measured in more than a hundred billion. Even if Guyana corrects its course only now, the NRF could still grow to US$40–50 billion by 2035 – several times larger than under continued consumption of the principal.
This Budget debate therefore presents a clear choice. Cash grants provide immediate relief, but they consume the nation’s inheritance. This is not an argument against helping citizens today; it is an argument for helping them every year, forever. An investment-led model provides both citizen dividends and stable budgetary support – permanently, predictably, and without dependence on continued extraction.
The question before us is not whether Guyana can afford to invest its resource revenues. It is whether we can afford not to.