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Folks last week, ASEPA made its position very clear on where it stand on the LGBTQ debate, our position is that considering the public outbursts on the subject, majority of Ghanaians seem to abhor the practice and so we have no choice than to support the bill perhaps not in it’s entirety but we support the rationale behind the bill.

Now that we have stated our official position on the subject, it is important that we do away with emotions and morality for now and ignite a very open conversation from an angle that has seen very little attention in this whole LGBTQ debate and that is the Economic Implications of promulgating an anti-LGBTQ law in Ghana.

Like I said we have had enough talk about Culture and Human Rights issues and in these aspects the Anti-LBTQ people have won that debate(at least in Ghana) now we need to look at the last aspect of this conversation which for me is the most important of all the issues surrounding this LGBTQ conversation.

There’s no point overstating that the LGBTQ Community have very powerful members and allies across the most influential financial organizations and major corporations around the World and there’s absolutely NO way Ghana passing a harsh anti-LGBTQ bill such as this one will go without a response.

According to Open for Business an organization advocating for LGBTQ equity in business, Kenya has been loosing at least $1.3billion dollars annually since 2019 due to harsh Anti-LGBTQ laws.

Other Countries have lost more, in terms of withdrawal of not only aid, grants and FDIs, some have their whole budgetary support lifeline withdrawn by donors.

In Ghana we expect the reprisal response to the current anti-LGBTQ bill to be very swift, and as we speak Twitter is gearing up to move its headquarters (which we made so much noise about) from Ghana if this bill is passed.

Google is also likely to exclude Ghana from its $1billion investment in Africa if this bill passes.

We call this the Sullivan Principle, it involves the use of foreign direct investment as a tool to cause social change and it takes it root from South Africa during the Apatheid, when Rev.Sullivan used his influence as a board member of General Motors to exert huge economic pressure on the South African Government, however non binding his strategies were, it led to the withdrawal of over 100 banks from South-Africa creating unbearable economic difficulties for the Government and the people that eventually led to the toppling of the Apartheid regime.

And so In having this whole anti-LGBTQ debate, we must not loose sight of the number of “Rev. Sullivans”we have in the current global financial and economic space.

I am not saying we should trade our culture off for bread, that is not the point!

The point is that the then South African Government officials however difficult things were made from the harsh economic realities of the Sullivan strategy did not go hungry, it was innocent citizens that lost jobs, livelihood and investments.

I am not laying this realities before you to change anybody’s mind about the bill, on the contrary I am introducing an angle to this LGBTQ debate which hasn’t seen enough of the conversation, so that Citizens can be aware of the potential economic reprisals that may stem out of this anti-LGBTQ bill so that once we decide to go for it, then we can brace ourselves for the realities yet to come.

This debate considering the strategic position of Ghana in the sub region and among the comity of nations cannot only revolve around culture and human rights, the economic implications of the bill must also be given enough consideration in the public discourse so the public would be very much aware what we are getting ourselves into so the inevitable reprisals doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Let the conversation begin…