By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama says the recently passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation contains some procedural flaws, assuring that efforts are ongoing to ensure they are quickly assessed by the Speaker of parliament.
Speaking in UK on Monday where he is currently embarking on a visit, Mahama said the bill passed by the parliament on Friday, which criminalises LGBTQ+ activities will undergo scrutiny before it could be assented to.
His legal council and attorney general would “sit on it because it was a private members’ motion… [and] not a government bill”, Mahama who returned to office for the second term last year stated.
The bill proposes up to three years imprisonment for identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, and a “duty to report” prohibited acts to police.
“We will look at it and make sure that everything is in order,” Mahama said, adding that the bill would be referred to the Council of State – his advisors – if there were any problems.
Since January 2025 when he returned to power, Mahama has faced intense pressure by religious leaders to strengthen anti-gay measures, which ban same-sex relationships under laws dating from the British colonial era.
The recent passage is the second time such legislation is being backed by MPs.
A similar bill was first introduced to parliament in August 2021 after an LGBTQ+ resources centre was shut down in the capital, Accra.
Mahama’s predecessor, former President Nana Akufo-Addo, failed to give his assent to that version of the bill before leaving office last year.
When it passed in 2024, it was challenged by multiple lawsuits at the Supreme Court, which Akufo-Addo used as a reason for not assenting to it.
The new bill was reintroduced in parliament this year by a cross-party group of MPs. But parliamentary members of Ghana’s minority party said they preferred the version of the bill passed in 2024, claiming that amendments to the current legislation have watered it down.
”The bill appears, and not only appears, substantially has lost the force and the bite and the thrust, the deterrence, the efficacy that it contained and carried in 2024,” minority spokesperson John Ntim Forjour explained.
The current version exempts punishment for legal, healthcare and media professionals who provide medical treatment and other services for gay people, or report on LGBTQ+ news.
Meanwhile, anyone who identifies as an “ally” – a supporter of LGBTQ+ people – could face a prison sentence.
Both forms of the legislation have been widely criticised by rights groups for infringing on the rights of sexual minorities.
