Speaker reiterates commitment to passing anti-LGBTQ bill into law – Skyy Power FM

The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Kingsford Bagbin has reiterated his commitment to outlaw the practice of homosexuality and contribute to the passing of the proper sexual rights and Ghanaian family bill into law.

Speaking at a forum in Takoradi on Ghana’s Parliament’s 30th anniversary in the 4th Republic, the speaker said parliament has come a long way in its democratic procedures as it continues to make strides to outlaw certain inhuman laws.

According to him, the practice of LGBTQ in the country is natural and will go a long way to turn into a crisis that will affect the country in a negative way.

He was speaking on passing of private members’ bills into laws in Ghana’s parliament which included the lynching of alleged witches and ending the death penalty.

He said, “We have now brought in what we refer to as the private member’s bill, recently you can attest to very key legislation we have passed, outlawing declaration of witches, death penalty and we are now looking at the intrusion of private norms like the LGBTQ, and that is also private members bills.”

“If we don’t take care of this bill, it will be worse than Covid-19, we need to be serious and outlaw it.”

He said the oversight function of Ghana’s parliament has improved over the years after surveys proved that Ghana’s parliament was very weak.

He said more light is being thrown on the dark side of governance and since then, Ghana has been adjudged as having the most open parliament in Africa.

He said “Our parliament has grown from 200 multiparty House to a 275 duopoly. Women’s representation has increased marginally from 8% to 14.50% in the first to the eighth Parliament of the Fourth Republic. Ghana remains among the lowest in Africa. Youth representation is less than 5%
Representation of PWDs has dropped from 5.5% in the sixth Parliament to zero.”

“Elections to political office have now become public auctions and money has taken centre stage.
Representation of our culture and traditions is the worse hit with a constitutional prohibition against the active participation of Chiefs in politics. The space of development cannot match up to population growth with a resultant high rate of unemployment and its attendant security risk and instability.”