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In Parliament, the fate of the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill brought ‘clash’ as Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin and Majority Leader and Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga publicly disagree on whether the bill must be reintroduced in the current (9th) Parliament.
Mahama Ayariga asserted during a press briefing stated Parliament had completed its work on the bill, and the only step left is for the President to give his assent.
“My recollection is that we passed this already as Parliament. We passed it, and the issue was giving it a presidential assent. So that is where it should be taken up. I don’t see why anybody should bring us a bill that we have passed already,” he said.
Mr. Ayariga noted that he was surprised to see the bill listed again on the order paper and questioned how it got there.
“The Speaker himself also expressed surprise finding it on the order paper. He invited the Clerk in my presence and asked how the bill got advertised. Because he too didn’t know how it got there,” the Majority Leader explained.
Ayariga contended that the only outstanding issue was the President’s refusal to sign the bill into law, and therefore Parliament’s role in the legislative process had already concluded.
Delivering a ruling on the matter, Speaker Bagbin declared that the controversial bill, officially titled The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, expired with the dissolution of the 8th Parliament and must therefore be reintroduced if it is to be considered again.
“The eighth Parliament is history. So are all the businesses that were pending in the eighth Parliament. They all ended with the eighth Parliament,” the Speaker said. “We now have a new Parliament, the ninth, and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced.”
Bagbin’s statement brings clarity after a week of confusion and political wrangling following claims by the Majority Leader that the bill had already been passed by the 8th Parliament and transmitted to the Presidency, implying that reintroduction was unnecessary.
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