The Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini, has slammed the finance ministry for opposing the Anti-LGBT+ Bill, saying that it would be tragic for the president to heed their advice and not sign the bill into law.
According to the MP, the finance ministry’s warning that the bill would have negative repercussions on Ghana’s economy was based on mere assumptions and not facts.
“It will be tragic if the president listens to this advice,” he stated in an interview with Accra-based JoyNews.
This comes after the Ministry of Finance warned that passing the bill will have negative repercussions on Ghana’s economy because it will affect various agreements the government has entered into.
The ministry pointed out that if the bill becomes law, it would affect World Bank financing of government projects to the tune of US$3.8 billion.
However, the MP explained that the argument is overstated as it ignores the risks that the multilateral agencies would also face if they cut ties with Ghana over the bill.
“These are ‘mays,’ ‘ifs,’ and ‘could haves.’ There is no certainty about a loss that will arise as a result of the president signing this bill; they are just assumptions that are being made. I am saying that those assumptions are based on our over-concentration on the risk that we face when we reflect on who we are, as against the need for us to also look at the risks that these bilateral agencies and multilateral agencies face as they also pursue an agenda of starving us with these funds,” he stated.
The Tamale North MP added that the international agencies also stand the risk of losing bilateral relations with Ghana if they also try to push an agenda if the bill becomes a law.
“It is important that we recognise that these funds are loans anyway; the IMF and World Bank hardly give us any grants; these are loans, so it is not a one-way street. It is a mutually-beneficial relationship that we have built over the years together, and it is not only Ghana that will lose if the IMF, World Bank, and other multi-lateral agencies on the basis of this law, destroy the mutually-beneficial relations that we have built over the years.
“… maybe we should also be examining what they also stand to lose and show it to them that if they pursue any agenda against us based on the passage of this law, then these are the losses that they will also suffer,” he added.
