The Minority in Parliament has criticised what it describes as deliberate attempts by the government to stall the reintroduction of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, popularly known as the anti-LGBTQ bill.
The caucus says five weeks have passed since Speaker Alban Bagbin announced that the bill, previously passed by the Eighth Parliament but withdrawn for reintroduction—was undergoing final fine-tuning to ensure its smooth passage. However, the bill has yet to make a return to the House for consideration.
Raising the issue on the floor of Parliament on Friday, November 21, lead sponsor of the bill and MP for Assin South, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, expressed frustration over the delay, urging parliamentary leadership to restore the bill to next week’s order paper.
“It is five weeks since Mr Speaker gave that ruling, and since then no attempt has been made by this House to have the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill addressed, even as the cancer of LGBTQ continues to devastate our norms and culture,” he lamented.
Ntim Fordjour warned that the silence around the bill risked creating the impression that an initiative treated as a national priority in the previous Parliament had now been abandoned.
He accused the government of deliberately blocking the bill from being featured in Parliament’s business schedule, describing the development as “a big disappointment” to Ghanaians. He called for immediate rectification if the omission was an oversight.
“The Speaker declared that it should be on the order paper, but this attempt by the government to block the bill is a big disappointment. We demand that it be added so it can be laid and presented for first reading,” he stressed.
Responding to the claims, Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga dismissed suggestions that the government was attempting to obstruct the bill’s return.
He assured Parliament that the Mahama administration remained committed to ensuring the bill’s passage once it was ready for consideration.
Ayariga maintained that there was no deliberate effort to suppress or delay the bill, adding that due parliamentary processes must be followed to guarantee a law that is implementable and constitutionally sound.
The Minority’s concerns add fresh tension to an already heated national debate over the legislation, which seeks to criminalise same-sex relations and various forms of LGBTQ advocacy. The bill remains a politically sensitive issue with strong public interest and deep divisions within civil society.