On Monday, while on a visit to the country, US Vice President Kamala Harris announced a US$100 -million support package for Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo, as part of her country’s efforts to promote stability in the West African sub-region.
Ms Harris said the package was meant to cushion the beneficiary countries financially to address violent extremism and instability.
The US Veep also expressed the US’s commitment to support Ghana to revamp its post-COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine-conflict-impacted economy.
We wish to commend the US for its continuous support for the country in various ways.
The offers are timely because they are coming in at a time the country is faced with economic hardship and also has to grapple with possible acts of terrorism from violent extremists, considering terrorist acts in Burkina Faso, one of its immediate neighbours.
We know the country’s government is making all the efforts to arrest the hardship in the country, including going to the IMF for assistance and restructuring its external debts.
Therefore, the US’s offers would enhance such efforts in significant ways.
For instance, the package to help revamp the economy can help fill some gaps in development that otherwise would have been left untouched for lack of funds.
The offer to fight extremism will also save the country its own money that should have been used for that purpose but now can be used for something else to enhance the development of the country.
As a developing country, Ghana lacks the wherewithal to tackle all its problems and so offers like those of the US being given out of goodwill should be praised, hence our commendation of the US for its pledges even before they are made good.
Much as we cherish the assistance of the US as a donor and development partner, we would like to appeal that such assistance must be devoid of conditionalities that undermine and thus injure our country’s cultural values.
In today’s world, the US and other Western countries want to impose certain taboo practices on developing or under-developed countries all in the name of human rights because these poor countries need assistance from the metropolitan countries.
Ghanaians believe in human rights but not those against their culture and will.
We definitely know there may be people within the walls of this country who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more (LGBTQIA+), but carrying out their taboo acts in the dark.
Doing so in the dark even tells the story that their sexual orientations are unacceptable in the Ghanaian context.
Therefore, any attempt by any Western power, including the US, to make the country’s leaders accept such a taboo would be deemed as an imposition and an act that must be fought on all fronts.
We support Ghana’s legislature for its stand to pass an anti-LGBT bill and we specifically praise the country’s Third-in-Command, the Honourable Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, for not mincing words about the resolve of the lawmakers to do so.
Ghana is in difficulties and needs assistance but its sovereignty must be left intact.
Therefore, any country or institution that intends to use financial or any other assistance to foist its taboo beliefs and practices on Ghana should rethink its position.
