Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh has explained why the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is pushing for the passage of the controversial anti-gay bill while the governing New Patriotic Party(NPP) appears not to support the bill publicly.
Prof Prempeh, who is vehemently opposed to the bill avers that the NDC is keen on seeing the bill passed because it is not in power to suffer the consequences of the passage of the bill and hence is engaging in populism.
“The opposition can afford to pander to populism by pushing this reckless bill because they know they are not in Government. But their political opportunism is short-sighted, unless, of course, they see no prospect of coming into Government any time soon.
“When you are in Government, as opposed to just trying to hold on to your one local parliamentary seat, that’s when you know how completely reckless a bill like this is.
“Unlike individual MPs, the Government operates in a dynamic international environment, where pandering to local populism can often come at a huge cost,” he said of the different approaches adopted by the two major parties.
Prof Prempeh revealed that the economy is already suffering the effect of the bill before Parliament following the country’s bond flop, noting that it so the bill is reckless and will hurt the country further.
“Go and ask the State’s economic managers; they are already feeling the pain from the bond markets. Here is a country that is unable to collect enough taxes from its citizens even to pay its day-to-day expenses and must depend on the international capital markets to raise money to balance its budgets and finance major infrastructure. And some sit in Parliament sponsoring reckless Bills of absolutely no value. We ain’t seen nothing yet!” He asserted.
Hearing of memoranda on the bill has begun in Parliament and the bill which proscribes LGBTQI+ and its advocacy will likely be passed given the pressure mounted by various groups, including churches and Islamic sects.
