…As Gov’t Extends Deadline
Minister of Communication Digitalisation Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has urged Ghanaians to embrace the government introduction of SIM cards re-registration to enable and help against activities of fraudsters which seem to be a major security issue in the country.
According to her, the initiative to re-register SIM cards is not meant to stress the populace but rather, to provide government with “SIM database with integrity”.
She also stated that, the exercise is also to help law enforcement agencies to identify SIM card owners, track criminals who use phones for illegal activities, curb phone theft, hate text messaging, mobile fraud activities, and SIM Box fraud.
In addition, it is also to help identify subscribers for the use of value-added services such as mobile banking, mobile money, and electronic payment services.
“Government in a bid to develop and build a SIM database with integrity, which will assist in curbing fraudulent activities, secure SIM Card based transactions and aid the determination of the accurate number of valid SIM cards on the various telecommunication networks at any point in time, commenced the SIM Card registration exercise on 1st October 2021” she disclosed this during a press briefing held yesterday, Sunday, July 31, 2022 when she announced an extension of the deadline for the SIM card re-registration to 30th September 2022.
“I will urge everyone to go out there and get for him/her self the Ghana card. It will not only be needed for the SIM card re-registration, very soon – there will be very little you can do in this country if you do not have National ID card. It is in your own interest, that you acquire it.”
The Minister noted that despite the challenges with the Ghana Card – long queues among others – many Ghanaians failed to register their SIMs after the deadline was extended in March this year.
Thus, the current extension becomes the final one.
“The statistics indicate that there was a 90% drop in SIM reregistration, as soon as the first deadline was extended on 21st March. Until a week ago there were no queues, people started going to register when they realised that the deadline was imminent after going to sleep.”
“The mobile network operators, NCA, and the NIA have all engaged additional staff, procured the necessary logistics and are incurring significant expenses to conduct this exercise successfully, any extension of the process increases their cost,” she added.
