Samuel Nartey George, Minister for Communications, Digital Technology and Innovation and Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, has publicly challenged the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) over its practice of distributing lubricants to men who have sex with men, arguing that such resources should instead be directed toward maternal healthcare.
Mr George, who serves as the lead sponsor of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, raised the issue on Friday, April 23, during the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs’ public hearing on the proposed legislation. The two-day sitting, held on April 23 and 24, 2026, invited civil society organisations, legal experts, faith groups, and members of the public to make formal submissions on the bill.
The minister questioned whether the GAC’s practice of engaging with pro-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) groups was consistent with the commission’s core mandate of fighting the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Ghana.
“We have evidence of Ghana AIDS Commission officers meeting with pro-LGBTQ groups and giving them lubricants. If the Ghana AIDS Commission is supposed to fight HIV, why are you giving lubricants to men to have anal sex with men?” he said.
Mr George rejected the justification that the materials are distributed to HIV-positive individuals to prevent onward transmission, describing it as an approach that sustains rather than reduces the conduct at issue. He argued that funding applied to such interventions would carry greater public health value if redirected to critical gaps in maternal care, including shortages of delivery beds in public hospitals.
The GAC had not issued a public response to the minister’s remarks as of the time of this report.
The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025 was reintroduced by a bipartisan group of ten Members of Parliament in February 2026 after lapsing at the close of the previous parliamentary term. It proposes criminal sanctions on same-sex conduct and related advocacy, and Mr George has been its principal sponsor since the legislation was first introduced in 2021.
