The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey George has expressed hope that the Anti- LGBTQ+ bill parliament will be passed despite the delay in parliament.

According to the MP, who is part of the eight members who tabled the bill to the house, other government bills have taken longer time in parliament as such, he is not worried about how long the anti-LGBTQ+ bill will take for it to be passed.

“The Right to Information (RTI) Bill took 20 years in parliament, and the Interstate Succession Bill is 18 years in parliament. There are several bills that the government itself has brought to parliament and are 6-10 years in parliament.

“So, if a private member’s bill takes this long, it’s in the right order. Government can pass bills faster because it has more resources than individuals. If government legislation has taken this long.

“Let’s not forget that this is the first full private. There is only one private member’s bill that has passed in parliament and that one was in 2020. Even though it was an amendment to existing legislation, it wasn’t full legislation on its own. This is the first time full legislation is coming as a private member’s bill. So. It's still a novel practice, parliament is going through,” he added.

The MP for Ningo-Prampram, who was speaking on GhanaWeb’s Legal Agenda, added that the sensitivity of the bill has contributed to it what it appears to be a delay.

He further stated that the LGBTQ+ community have also ‘intentionally’ slowed the processes in parliament as far as the passing of the bill was concerned.

“And because of how sensitive this matter is and because the LGBTQ community decided to do what we call filibustering, it is an intentional attempt to slow down the processes in Parliament. So this bill received over 180 partitions. I told the committee to let's take our time and review the over 180 memos that came and that took almost a year and a half to do and so the bill is in process.

“I think we have done over 80% of the bill because the main work is at the committee level” he added.

The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values 2021 was first introduced to Ghana's parliament in July 2021 and underwent its first reading by Parliament on 3 August the same year.

The eight members who introduced the bill in parliament include; Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, Rev John Ntim Forjour, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini, and Rita Naa Odoley Sowah.

The others are; Helen Adjoa Ntoso and Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor.



NW/OGB

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