Wednesday's Cabinet meeting will see a proposal for South Africa to co-chair the BRICS Summit with China, in China. At this stage, the summit is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg in August.

South Africa finds itself in a position where it has to seek an alternative country to host this year's BRICS Summit. This is seen as a means of solving Pretoria's quandary about Russian President Vladimir Putin entering the country to attend the summit, which is scheduled for August.

Sources told Daily Maverick that the legal opinion sought by the BRICS-appointed technical team and presented to the interministerial committee (IMC) headed by Deputy President Paul Mashatile gave an adverse finding about Putin attending the summit.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, "The IMC met yesterday and discussed the various permutations with respect to our hosting of the BRICS summit. They will present their recommendation to the President. An announcement will be made once the decision has been finalised."

Daily Maverick understands that South Africa is already in talks with China about the possibility of sharing the host status this year.

Hosting the summit in China is under consideration because it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The other option would be India, which is also not a signatory to the Rome Statute. The only issue is that India is due to host the...