Sam George, Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, has urged Ghana’s Parliament to remain steady and ignore the warnings provided by Virginia Palmer, US Ambassador to Ghana, about the adoption of the anti-LGBTQ Bill.
Sam George stressed the necessity of keeping Ghanaian values and belief systems rather than submitting to external pressures or recommendations during an interview on Eyewitness News with Selorm Adonoo on Citi FM.
According to Sam George, it is critical for Ghanaians to recognise the importance of retaining their cultural identity and ideals.
“It is high time Ghanaians begin to realize that the way we sell ourselves is how we will be bought and that this is a sovereign nation and in fact, for anybody who goes into business or partnership, the first interest of any potential business partner is a sense of integrity and a value system and so if you tell the Ghanaian people that our culture frowns on this (LGBTQ) but because of a few thousand or million dollars worth of investment that is not even proven will come, you push it aside, Ghana will be seen as the country that does not have integrity and any true businessman will not come here to work with us.
“So let us not buy into the rhetoric and let us stop regurgitating that rhetoric that if we pass the bill, something will happen to us”
Ambassador Palmer cautioned media in Accra that the approval of the Proper Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill would make Ghana unappealing to international investors and exporters.
However, the Ningo-Prampram politician encouraged Ghana to discover its biggest selling point, which he claimed pulls investors into the nation, when negotiating in order to avoid being bullied as has always been the case.
“Every country has its own strength and selling point and it is not every country’s selling point that is about the size of its economy. Ghana is safe and the safest democracy in sub-Saharan Africa and that is why UN agencies and American companies have their headquarters in Ghana because we have a safe democracy and so we should not cheapen ourselves because when we cheapen ourselves, we will be bought that way.