The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in Parliament has sounded a warning it would no longer cooperate with the Majority New Patriotic Party (NPP) to consider and pass Bills before the House.
According to the side, if the Majority group continues to delay consideration and passage of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill dubbed the anti-LGBTQ+ bill currently before the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, cooperation in the House will suffer
The Bill is a Private Members Motion filed by some Minority Members of the House in a bid to outlaw homosexual acts in the country.
The controversial Bill also referred to as the Anti-gay Bill, clarifies the vague provisions of the country’s laws on all related activities concerning homosexuality.
Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak issued the warning on Wednesday, June 8th, 2022 after a desperate attempt by the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to rebuff concerns raised by some members of the minority on the undue delay of the Bill.
The members accused the Chairman, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi of deliberately delaying the Bill at the Committee level beyond the permitted three month period.
Member for Ho West Constituency, Hon. Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah had raised concern about the Bill during presentation of the Business Statement on Tuesday and the time it is taking the Committee to present its report.
In his defence, however, the Chairman indicated private hearings have commenced after the public hearing as part of the timetable of the Committee.
He expressed surprise at the posture of the Ho West MP who he said was in attendance at the first in-camera meeting with all the sponsors of the Bill.
Minority Whip Muntaka supported the claims of his side and insisted the unusually cumbersome stakeholder engagement procedure adopted by the Chairman of the Committee is the cause of the delay.
He said, “You are deliberately wasting time and delaying the Bill at your Committee and I can assure you and your front bench with what you have done and trying to justify, no bill will pass through this House without our resistance,”
“If you say what I am saying is a lie, work hard in a week and you will be able to bring the report but you are deliberately wasting time because you don’t want the Bill and that is a fact,” he added.
According to the Chief Whip, the Chairman deliberately ignored advice to hold a one-off engagement with the public and then handle the rest at the Committee level and at plenary and rather chose a winding process.
“You opted to use a vehicle that gave people unfettered time meanwhile you know of the Constitutional provision, Article 106 (4) which states that a Bill introduced to this House shall not be delayed for more than three months at any Committee.
“If you realized there will be a delay the only thing you do as a Chair is come back and tell the House because of such and such reasons there will be some delays,” he stressed.