Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday in Ghana that the United States will donate $100 million to Ghana. They will also donate to four other West African nations to assist them in combating violent extremism and instability.
To counter the rising influence of China and Russia on the African continent. US Vice President Harris began a week-long trip to three African countries in Accra.
“President Biden and I have made it very clear that the US is deepening its relationships across the African continent.” She said during a press conference with Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Despite the fact that the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group is assisting a number of African nations with security. China has made significant investments in the continent over the past two decades, notably in infrastructure, mining, wood, and fisheries.
Akufo-Addo raised alarm over Wagner’s presence in West Africa.
“This offers a very real risk to our continent. We may once again become the theater for great power confrontation,” he added as he approached Harris.
Military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso may have been fueled in part by Islamist insurgencies. They have created humanitarian catastrophes and fueled unrest in other West African and Sahel area countries.
“We applaud your leadership in the face of a recent democratic setback in West Africa,” Harris said Akufo-Addo.
She expressed her delight at the announcement of $100 million in funding for Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo. It is to combat violent extremism and instability.
In addition to the $139 million in bilateral aid that the US intends to send Ghana in the fiscal year 2024, as announced by Harris’ office.
Harris’s next stop will be Tanzania, followed by Zambia.
EQUALITY FOR LGBTQ PEOPLE
At the press conference, Harris was asked whether she planned to advocate for LGBT rights on her trip. Ghanian law that would severely limit such rights is now being debated in the legislature.
“I have drawn attention to this problem,” Harris said., She added that she was adamant about protecting the rights of everyone, including the LGBT population.
In Ghana, a proposed measure would make homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexual identification illegal. In Ghana, no one has been punished for gay relations in years. The legislation now provides for a maximum jail sentence of three years.
The proposed legislation requires “conversion therapy” to change a person’s sexual orientation. Beginning in 2021, the bill will be submitted to Congressional hearings. The date of a vote on this issue is unknown.
A reporter from the United States asked Akufo-Addo whether the measure was official government policy. Akufo-Addo stated that it did not, and that parliamentarians had introduced it on their own.
He stated that the country’s attorney general briefed a parliamentary committee looking into the bill on “the constitutionality or otherwise of a number of its components.”
“My understanding is that substantial portions of the statute have already been modified as a result of the attorney general’s involvement,” he said, without going into specifics.
“I have little optimism that the Ghanaian parliament would exhibit, as it has in the past, its sensitivity to human rights problems and the sentiments of our population,” he said of the proposed measure.
