Parliament could have handled Presidency’s letter on anti-gay bill more maturely - Atta Akyea

The Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta Akyea, has underscored the importance of consensus building and collaboration between the arms of government themselves as well as various actors in Ghana’s political dispensation to propel national development.

He was speaking in a radio interview regarding the ongoing tension between the presidency and parliament over the passage of the anti-gay bill.

On February 28, 2024, lawmakers passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2021 known as the anti-gay bill which seeks to criminalise all activities related to the LGBTQ community.

However, on March 18, 2024, the Office of the President wrote to parliament requesting it not to transmit the bill to President Akufo-Addo for assent.

The Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante, cited two pending applications for an order of interlocutory injunction before the Supreme Court.

In what was considered as a retaliatory move, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin also halted the vetting and approval of ministers-designate nominated by the President.

He explained that it was due to a writ filed by Member of Parliament for South, Dayi Rockson-Nelson Etse K. Dafeamekpor, seeking to restrain Parliament from approving ministers.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) legislator argued that the President should have sought parliamentary approval before reassigning ministers whose appointments were revoked.

The Supreme Court has since then dismissed the application after the court process was expedited upon request of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Dame.

The move has been heavily criticised by the NDC.

Mr Samuel Atta Akyea, who is a ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) legislator, noted that even though he believed that the President’s Secretary’s letter to parliament was inappropriate, parliament could have found a better way to handle the issue rather than trying to handicap the President in return. 

“If we are not careful, we will reduce statecraft to, if you like, the kindergarten level of tit for tat. Granted the President’s Secretary’s letter to parliament was terrible, the matured way of handling something that’s very bad is not to say is that what you’ve done, I’ll do the same to you,” he said.

“I’m very sad about this tit-for-tat, it’s not good for statecraft. There’s a way that we could have looked at it and would have avoided all that,” he intimated further.