Communications Minister Samuel Nartey George has assured Parliament that Ghana’s forthcoming biometric SIM registration exercise will be free, technically robust, and backed by tighter identity controls than any previous round, as the government prepares for a nationwide rollout it has described as a final and definitive exercise.
Mr George appeared before Parliament’s Select Committee on Information and Communication to outline the framework, which is being implemented jointly by the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the National Identification Authority (NIA). He confirmed that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) will bear all registration-related costs, with no charges passed to subscribers.
The Minister outlined key improvements in the new system, including real-time biometric verification, mandatory audit trails and stricter accountability measures to track registration activities and identify responsible agents. Under the revised process, SIM cards will only be activated after successful verification of biometric data against the NIA database, ensuring every active number is linked to a confirmed identity.
The framework sets out specific identification requirements across user groups. Ghanaian citizens will register using the Ghana Card. Non-citizen residents will use the Non-Citizen Ghana Card, while refugees will present the Refugee Non-Citizen identity document. Visitors and tourists will be required to provide a valid passport alongside proof of entry. Diplomats will use official identification, and corporate entities will register using a certificate of incorporation together with the Ghana Card of an authorised signatory.
Technical features of the new system include support for both Android and iOS devices, self-registration options for embedded SIM (eSIM) and physical SIM cards, and remote SIM delinking capabilities. The platform will also integrate device verification through the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) operated by the NCA, enabling authorities to track and block stolen or counterfeit handsets.
On fraud deterrence, the Minister explained that linking SIM cards directly to the NIA database raises the cost of mobile money fraud to a prohibitive level. When a Ghana Card is blocked, the holder loses access to every government service, making fraudulent registration far more costly than any potential gain.
The system introduces a 90-day automatic deactivation rule for SIM cards linked to foreign nationals, triggered either upon expiry of legal stay in Ghana or after the 90-day period, with built-in compliance controls to enforce the measure.
The initiative is being aligned with broader financial sector regulation through coordination with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Data Protection Commission (DPC), particularly in addressing risks linked to mobile money services.
The NCA Director-General, Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, has previously noted that a joint validation exercise conducted on approximately 2.3 million records found that biometric fingerprint verification recorded zero matches against the NIA database, exposing the fundamental failure of the 2021 to 2023 registration round. The government has ruled out migrating that data into the new system without full biometric cleansing.
Committee Chair Bandim Lamangin Abed-Nego welcomed the reforms and called for transparency, public trust and sustained public awareness to ensure nationwide compliance once the rollout begins. The commencement date remains tied to the passage of the legislative instrument currently before Parliament.
