In his continuing defence of the Budget, President Irfaan Ali has expressed a belief that the 2026 Budget will support price stability for food, expand local production and increase home ownership, with other benefits attached.

He said the investment in the Agriculture Sector will significantly boost production and bring down the cost of products. This year, the Government is looking to inject $113.2 Billion in the Agriculture Sector – approximately $28.3B more than it did in 2025.

“One of the ways in which you can address rising cost and cost of food is by boosting local production to reduce price pressures that is while we invest billions of dollars in drainage and irrigation so we can have more lands available for farming. The investments that we are making in Budget 2026 will open up tens of thousands of acreage of new farm lands. Who will benefit from these farm lands? It is the ordinary farmers. Five acres plot, expanding livestock, expanding other crops, expanding out of the traditional crops, all geared at becoming more food secure and also enabling our farmers to access greater markets,” the President said.

He said embedded in the budget are measures that will reduce the cost of living and deliver greater goods and services to the people of Guyana.

One such measure is the removal of Corporate income tax on agriculture and agro-processing businesses.

“We removed corporate tax on interest earned by banks on poultry sector, so that the cost of production will go down, so that farmers could benefit, so that the general population could benefit from lower prices. We went a step forward in 2026 Budget, by removing all taxes on agriculture and agro-processing. All of this would lead to greater confidence in Agriculture, greater lending, lower cost of production, greater access to capital and all will lead to higher levels of production,” the President.

President Ali said too that the continuation of zero-rated excise tax on petroleum products will directly benefit Guyanese, noting that the same could be said for the extension of pre-pandemic freight charges on import taxes.

Turning his attention to the Housing Sector, the President said the move to increase the low-income mortgage ceiling from $20 million to $30 million, and extend low income mortgage ceiling to increase companies augur well for Guyanese.

“Housing relief and lowering the cost of home ownership – not only the lower of interest rate and the foregone revenue for this is tens of billions of dollars but the hundreds of billions of dollars that we are investing in infrastructure in housing to make home ownership easier to ensure that every Guyanese family can have the joy of owning their home,” President Ali said.

His Administration has also announced that $7.5 Billion has been budgeted for the issuance of housing improvement subsidy.  

It was also noted that the Government is also investing heavily in Power Generation and the Water Sectors, and other sectors that directly impact Guyanese.

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