The Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs' alleged delay in working on the anti-LGBTQ measure devolved into a dogfight in Parliament yesterday, with screaming fights.
The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021, aims to criminalize homosexuality and related sexual orientations, as well as making advocacy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in Ghana a felony.
The committee is now holding a public hearing to allow people and organizations who submitted memoranda on the bill to defend their submissions and provide more information, which has caused the process to be delayed.
And MPs from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) viewed it as an opportunity to gain political capital by accusing the committee's chairman, an NPP MP, and the government of purposefully prolonging the process in order to prevent the proposed legislation from becoming law.
Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, the Minority Chief Whip, has vowed to obstruct the passage of government measures in the House if the chairman continues to utilize the "tortoise approach" to deal with issues at the committee level.
"In terms of the constitution, when you propose a bill and it is sent to a committee, the committee cannot spend more than three months on it," Mr Muntaka said.
"I just want to point you to Standing Order 136, which is the constitution in its entirety." According to the side note, there is a time restriction for delaying measures in committee under Article 106 of the Constitution.
"It's about committee [work] delays." Mr. Speaker, if the chair has decided to use a strategy that allows him to leave the committee's work and travel for one or two weeks, then return and continue with the tortoise manner of dealing with the bill at the committee, then we may have to give our colleagues notice," he said.
"Since this is the method the Chairman of Legal and Constitutional Affairs will want to use to delay that bill, that bill was in this House before four other bills," the NDC MP continued, "I can assure you that any other bill that is introduced in this House, we will resist it, even if it is to provide water in Asawase."
"We will ensure that, as long as that law is in the House, every other bill you introduce will be opposed by us because we recognize that it is purposeful." You are purposefully postponing the payment of the debt.
"Don't create excuses since you know what to do if you want things fast-tracked." If the government wants that bill, they know what to do, and I'm telling it to the Chairman on his face, Mr. Speaker, what you're doing at that committee. You are purposefully squandering time. He declared, "You don't want the bill to get to this House."
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