A sponsor of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, Sam George has explained that Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin did not block the third reading of the bill. Early on Thursday, February 15, Mr Afenyo-Markin opposed the provision of the bill that would lead to the imprisonment of individuals accused of engaging in or promoting LGBTQ+ activities. According to him, the bill’s punitive action would not aid in rehabilitating the culprits.
Reports have suggested that but for his opposition, the passage of the controversial legislation would have gone through today. But Sam George insists that Afenyo-Markin did not ‘arrest of the third reading’ of the bill. Speaking on Joy FM’s TopStory on February 15, he argued that “Afenyo Markin did not arrest the third reading. He would have been defeated with ease on the floor.”
He clarified that he and another sponsor, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah intended to do a second consideration of the bill. “We, as sponsors have about 10 amendments we want to make to the draft the persons have brought. For example, if you look at the head notes of what the draft person has brought, we agreed at the House to delete Ghanaian. So, the bill will not read Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values; it will read the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill.
“We decided to delete ‘proper and Ghanaian.’ They did that but in some of the clauses you still see Ghanaian repeat itself there so we needed to clean those things up so we ourselves were going to do a second consideration.”
As such, he said after Mr Afenyo-Markin contributed to the debate, his co-sponsor seconded the motion, implying the Deputy Majority Leader did not disrupt the third reading. “That is the reason why my co-sponsor Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah responded by seconding the motion. So, Afenyo did not have what it took to arrest the bill,” he said.
By: Connielove Mawutornyo Dzodzegbe
