The Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Sam George has issued a 24 hour ultimatum to authorities to pull down a billboard on the Accra-Tema Motorway that supposedly promotes LGBTQI activities.

“We are calling on the Inspector General of Police to immediately, within the next 24 hours to carry out the necessary security operations to ensure that this billboard which is an affront to the Constitution is taken down in conjunction with the MCE for the area.”

According to one of the sponsors of the Anti- LGBTQI Bill currently before the house, the promotion of the practice through outdoor advertising is illegal.

“Over the weekend, our attention was drawn to an illegality that flies in the face of the Constitution of Ghana – Articles 11 and 26 which talks about Ghana’s cultural sovereignty. We noticed that a billboard promoting the activities of the LGBTQ activities have been mounted along the motorway.

“As sponsors of the bill before Parliament and as members of Parliament who represent the aspirations and will of Ghanaians, we have deemed it important to show up here today to register in the strongest way our displeasure, discomfort and abhorrence for this unholy, unculturable and untraditional advertisement that has been put up on this road.”

The Bill on the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights prescribes that people of the same sex who engage in sexual activity could spend up to 10 years in jail.

Varying forms of support for the LGBTQ+ community will also be criminalised if the Bill, known as the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, is passed into law.

The members of Parliament that presented the bill are, Sam George, Emmanuel Bedzrah (MP, Ho West) Della Adjoa Sowah (MP, Kpando), John Ntim Fordjour (MP, Assin South), Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini (MP, Tamale North), Helen Adjoa Ntoso (MP, Krachi West), Rita Naa Odoley Sowah (MP, La Dadekotopon) and Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor (MP, South Dayi).

The bill is currently at the committee level in Parliament, where public hearings are being held by legislators.

While data indicates that most Ghanaians are in favour of the Bill, it has faced criticism from renowned artists and academics.