CABINET IS WARM ON BRICS AND GHANA IS NOT IN THE BLOC
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said Cabinet had recently looked at possible BRICS membership and was favorable. He also said Ghana, which is preparing to chair the African Union, wants closer cooperation with BRICS and CARICOM. He framed the move as national interest, not loyalty to old allies. No admission letter, no date, and no BRICS confirmation have been published. A positive Cabinet view is not membership.
Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says Cabinet has considered Ghana joining BRICS and is taking a positive view of the bloc. That is not the same thing as a seat at the table.
Ablakwa set out the position while arguing that Ghana should use the present global tension to cut dependence on outside support and to keep a firmer hold on its resources. He said Accra is preparing to chair the African Union and intends to deepen cooperation with blocs that include BRICS and the Caribbean Community. He also pointed to Ghana’s role as host of the African Continental Free Trade Area secretariat, and he put intra African trade at about 14 percent of the continent’s commerce. The BRICS line came in the same argument. Cabinet, he said, had recently considered potential membership and was positive.
He tied the shift to interest, not history. “This business of these are my traditional allies, these were colonial masters, these are the people who have been with us, it doesn’t work,” he said. In a separate remark the same week he said Africa does not have to choose sides. “We will not be boxed into a corner. We will play smart.” He invoked the Non Aligned Movement and Kwame Nkrumah’s line that Ghana faced neither east nor west, but forward.
BRICS began in 2006 as Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2010 and supplied the S. The group has since widened. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia have come in. Saudi Arabia was invited. The bloc’s pitch is trade, investment and a louder voice for emerging economies against institutions built by the older powers. It is not a treaty alliance, and it does not issue a common currency that members are obliged to use. Joining is by invitation and consensus. A Cabinet in Accra cannot vote itself in.
That is the gap in the announcement. Ablakwa did not publish a Cabinet decision paper, a formal application, or a letter from the BRICS chair. He did not name a summit at which Ghana would be proposed. He did not say whether the positive view is a mandate to apply, or a steer to keep talking. Until BRICS says Ghana is a member, or a partner country, the status is what he said it is. Under consideration. Viewed favorably.
The politics around that sentence are plain. Russia and China are core members. Iran is in. Ghana still trades with Western capitals, still hosts American military exercises, and is negotiating its own trade track with Washington. Ablakwa’s answer to that tension is the one he gave in New York. Look at who offers the best deal. Do not accept being sorted into a camp. A BRICS application would test whether partners on both sides believe him.
What he has put on the record is a direction. Cabinet is positive. Cooperation is to deepen. The AU chair is the stage he wants. What he has not put on the record is admission. Ghana is not a BRICS member today.
