Discussion on the perceived delay of work on the anti-LGBTQ bill by the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs deteriorated into a dogfight in Parliament yesterday amidst shouting matches.
The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021, seeks to criminalise homosexuality and its allied sexual orientations and make advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people a crime in the country.
Currently, the committee is holding a public hearing to give individuals and organisations who have submitted memoranda on the bill the opportunity to justify their submissions and offer further explanation on their views, and this has delayed the process.
And the lawmakers, from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), saw it as an opportunity to make political capital out of it, by attacking the committee’s chairman, who is an NPP MP, and the government, of deliberately delaying the process to deny the draft legislation from becoming a law.
Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, threatened to block the passage of government bills in the House if the chairman continuously used “tortoise method” to deal with the bill at the committee level.
“As far as the constitution is concerned, when you introduce a bill and it is referred to a committee, that committee must not spend more than three months,” Mr Muntaka stated.
“I just want to refer you to Standing Order 136 which is just a verbatim of the constitution. This is what the side note says: Time limit for delay of bills in committee for constitutional provision of Article 106.
“It is about delays in committees’ [work]. Mr. Speaker, if the chair has decided to adopt a method that gives him room to be able to leave the committee’s work and travel for one or two weeks and come back, and come and continue with the very tortoise method of dealing with the bill at the committee, then maybe, we have to serve notice to our colleagues,” he indicated.
The NDC MP continued, “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, I can assure you that any other bill that will be introduced in this House, we shall resist it, even if it is to provide water in Asawase, we will resist it.
“We will make sure that, that bill as long as it stays there, any other bill that you put in this House, we shall oppose it because we see that it is deliberate. You are deliberately delaying the bill.
“Don’t make excuses because if you want it to be fast-tracked, you know what to do. If the government wants that bill they know what to do, and what you are doing at that committee, Mr. Speaker, I am repeating it to the Chairman on his face. You are deliberately wasting time. You don’t want the bill to come to this House,” he asserted.
Majority Rebuttal
But the Majority caucus, which took exception to the attack on the committee, chairman and the government, rebutted Minority’s claims of deliberate delay of the passage of the bill.
Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, quizzed, “Mr. Speaker, why has the Chairman of the Constitution and Legal Affairs Committee been singled out for blame? Why is it being personalised? We have leadership of a committee. Why has Hon Muntaka kept quiet on the Ranking Member on the committee from their side?”
He continued, “We all know how committees work. The Chair and Ranking Member must confer and agree. The Chairman cannot single-handedly take decisions. It is very rich to hear the Minority Chief Whip going after a respected member of this House, whose record is not in doubt.
“Mr. Speaker, if this is not an agenda with the main aim of setting up a grand agenda, then I am sure the new drama is about to unfold. It means the peace of this House is likely to be disturbed. Because, Mr. Speaker, he did not just make the statement. He interlaced it with threats, and I know when he normally keeps quiet and looks down, I know what he is about,” he submitted.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin, who is also the NPP MP for Effutu, said the leadership of Parliament could engage the committee to work expeditiously if they really meant well.
“If the leadership of this House so desires that the committee must move with the speed of light, we should engage the committee,” he stressed.
He added, “But our side, the Majority of the House, will never accept a submission by the Minority Chief Whip to single out our Chairman and subject him to ridicule and embarrassment to get the media to attack him when the Ranking Member is part of the decisions of the Committee.”