Ghana’s ultimate economic salvation lies not in shifting geopolitical allegiances, but in a radical domestic structural transformation, Dr Richmond Akwasi Atuahene, a Financial Analyst, has asserted.
“Joining a new economic bloc will not cure the systemic vulnerabilities of the Ghanaian economy,” he explained, in an exclusive interview with Ghana News Agency (GNA).
The Cabinet of Ghana is taking steps toward a BRICS application, reflecting a desire to escape Western-dominated institutional conditionalities.
The BRICS is an international organisation currently comprising ten countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
The Foreign Minister, Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, recently, during a joint press briefing with Indian External Affairs Minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, announced a Cabinet decision for Ghana to formally apply for membership of BRICS, which had generated discussions across academia, economists, civil society organisations and the public.
Re-orienting Ghana’s economic destiny must be the topmost priority, Dr Atuahene, argues, rather than relying on external bodies – whether the IMF or BRICS.
Ghana must dismantle the colonial-era, affectionately primed “Guggisberg economy” and replace it with a modern, self-sustaining, value-added model, the analyst said.
The term “Guggisberg Economy”—coined from the legacy of colonial Governor Gordon Guggisberg—defines an economic structure optimized strictly to extract and export raw materials, while relying heavily on imported finished goods.
To dismantle this century-old architecture, the corporate governance and financial performance expert alluded, Ghana must focus inward on the following structural pillars by pursuing aggressive value addition by transitioning from exporting raw cocoa beans, unrefined gold, and crude oil to processing these resources locally.
Dr Atuahene noted that true resource sovereignty requires manufacturing domestic chocolate, refining gold, and expanding petrochemical industries and undertake industrialization and import substitution by prioritizing domestic production over imports—through targeted support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and specialized industrial zones—is essential to retaining wealth within the borders.
Ghana’s justification and expected benefits for joining the BRICS bloc centres, according to Dr Atuahene on diversifying its economic partnerships, resource sovereignty and industrialisation, expanding development financing and bilateral trade and adding value to its natural resources as well as global south cooperation, giving stronger voice in shaping multipolar global governance, trade policies and collective stance on climate change and food security.
He said justifications why Ghana should not join the BRICS now, could be attributable to Ghana’s economic structure, which remains fundamentally deformed by a colonial-style model that relies on exporting raw materials, while importing finished goods, creating deep, recurring cycles of debt, inflation, and currency depreciation.
“BRICS membership is not a magic fix for Ghana’s structural and macroeconomic problems.”
The Financial Analyst underscored that Ghana’s economy remains undiversified and vulnerable to external shocks, arguably the most significant underlying cause of bad economic management and chronic instability in Ghana, in addition to revenue volatility, lack of value addition, core structural failures – raw commodity export dependence, chronic weak currency, underdeveloped manufacturing, agric-business and industrialization and the galamsey menace.
Dr Atuahene recounted that Ghana sought its 17th financial assistance programme from the International Monetary Fund in 2022 (approved in May 2023) due to an overwhelming debt burden, severe macroeconomic instability, and the loss of access to international capital markets, loss of international market access, dwindling foreign reserves, weak fiscal fundamentals and overspending.
He said the country is likely to offer endemic corruption to the BRICS drive over financial irregularities stemming from the loss of over GHS18 billion by 2024, prompting the launch of the National Ethics and Anti-Corruption Action Plan (2026–2030).
Again, Civil society groups, including the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), estimate that Ghana loses close to GHS 10 billion (nearly $3 billion) to corruption over multi-year cycles, with Corruption Watch tracking about GHS 9.6 billion stolen from the public purse since late 2017.
Also, cash bribes according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that an estimated GHS 5 billion ($320 million) was paid in cash bribes in a single year, which equals roughly one-third of the Ministry of Education’s annual budget with Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, Ghana scored 42 out of 100 (ranking 80th out of 180 countries), performing slightly better than the Sub-Saharan African average of 33, though marking a downward trend in public sector perception.
He said from the above discussions the negatives outweigh the positives, which demands thoughtfulness and forthrightness. And avoid premature
Dr Atuahene suggested an aggressive domestic resource mobilization by leveraging domestic financing mechanisms to fund infrastructure, agriculture, and technological upgrades, thereby reducing the fiscal exposure to foreign debt and exchange rate volatility.
He postulated that external economic alliances could be tools, and not cures, indicating that “Whether aligned with the global West or the global South, Ghana will remain economically fragile as long as its core economic structure remains colonial.”
Dr Atuahene, also Director of Salman Partners and Financial Consult Ltd insisted that true economic independence requires a bold domestic blueprint that transforms Ghana from a passive, rent-seeking supplier of primary commodities into a competitive producer of high-value goods, which should shape the economic imperative.
“The priority must be domestic reconstruction first, and international multi-alignment second.”
He said Ghana cannot negotiate its way to prosperity from foreign capitals while its Rivers run toxic, farms are destroyed and its prime human resource, the youth wander in desperation.