Finance Ministry backtracks on brief to Akufo-Addo on signing anti-LGBTQ+ bill amidst financial cuts

Abena Osei-Asare, the Minister of State-designate at the Finance Ministry has indicated that the financial brief from the ministry to President Akufo-Addo did not seek to advise the President from assenting to the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2024.

She said the document was an internal memo that got leaked to the media.

A 5-paged document from the finance ministry to the president stated amongst other things, that Ghana could lose about US$3.8 billion in World Bank budgetary financing over the next five years should President Akufo-Addo assent the anti-LGBTQ+ bill into law.

The letter further noted that some government ongoing projects could also suffer financial cuts.

But Mrs. Osei-Asare who appeared before Parliament’s Appointment Committee on Wednesday, March 13, said that the document was an internal brief to the President that was leaked to the media.

“We heard certain sentiments from certain stakeholders so what we sought to do was to see how best we can address any revenue gap issue should they arise as a result of the passage of the bill. It was an internal memo.

“It wasn’t a memo that was to be sent outside because we were sitting to see how best we could close the gap,” the former Deputy Minister told the committee on Wednesday, March 13.

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However, Mrs. Osei-Asare maintained that the government has no plans to reinstate road tolls in 2024.

“The document that spells out the vision for the government in 2024 is the budget. So we are working with the budget and in the budget for 2024, I don’t think we introduced any lime item for road tolls and so it remains as such,” she stated.

On the country’s economic standings, the Minister-designate revealed that Ghana’s public debt is GHs621 billion as of December 2023.