Guyana’s 2026 Legislative Agenda

The budget presentation of the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs gave a brief snippet of the Guyana’s Legislative Agenda for 2026. Some of the proposed Bills mentioned with business significance are the Trustee Bill, the Development Bank Fund Bill, the Natural gas Bill, Depreciating of Assets Sale Bill, Companies Bill, Evidence Bill.

Without knowing more than the name, we can infer that the Development Bank, Companies, Trust and Natural Gas Bills will be of interest to both local businesses and international businesses and investors. The question that must be on quite a few minds is when these Bills will be available to public consumption. Presently, anyone wanting to learn more about these Bills would be unable to do so at this time as they are not yet publicly available.

A check of the Ministry of Legal Affairs website which has a page where draft bills can be found shows that the only Bill appearing on that page is the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill 2024. The unavailability of draft legislation before it is submitted for consideration by the National Assembly is a disadvantage to both the business and legal community. It does not provide enough time for the public at large to consider changes to the law that affect their interests.

There are no current laws or regulations in place concerning when draft bills should be published. Perhaps it is time that legislation exist setting out clear timeline about when draft legislation should be published for public consideration.