Outspoken media personality Afia Schwarzenegger has called on parliament to focus on passing a bill to help deal with the canker of corruption in the country, which has adversely impacted the country's economic fortunes.
She stated that the menace of corruption in Ghana is a worrying situation that requires urgent attention for the corrupt officials to be dealt with drastically rather than focusing on the passage of the anti-LGBT+ bill, which awaits presidential assent to be passed into law.
Afia Schwarzenegger indicated that members of both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are "thieves" and, hence, must be prosecuted.
"If there is anything to be signed, it should be the anti-corruption bill. There should be clarity on the prison sentence the culprits would serve for indulging in corruption. It should be passed for the country to recover lost funds that were accrued by state officials through corruption.
"Both the NDC and the NPP are thieves, so passing such a bill will help deal with the culprits. The efforts the MPs are putting in to pass the LGBT+ bill should be the same as the anti-corruption bill," she said while speaking in a TikTok live session monitored by GhanaWeb.
Corruption has been a major debacle in the country, as various government's efforts to deal with such individuals have not proven to have yielded the expected results.
President Akufo-Addo set up the Office of Special Prosecutor, headed by Kissi Agyebeng, however, the outfit has faced challenges in its attempt tp prosecute alleged corrupt officials.
About the passage of the anti-gay bill:
On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, the Parliament of Ghana passed the Promotion of Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, widely known as the anti-LGBT+ bill.
The bill, currently awaiting presidential assent, proscribes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) activities and criminalizes their promotion, advocacy, and funding.
Persons caught in these acts will be subjected to a six-month to three-year jail term, with promoters and sponsors facing a three to five-year jail term.
The bill will now require presidential assent to come into force within seven days. However, if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo refuses to assent to the bill, parliament, by a two-thirds majority vote, can approve it into law.
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