SIM registration: NIA boss Attafuah raises concern against attitude of Ghanaians towards deadlines

The Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA) Professor Ken Attafuah has raised concerns against the attitude of some Ghanaians when it comes to meeting deadlines for exercises including the SIM reregistration that is being undertaken by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization and the National Communications Authority (NCA).

He noted that immediately after the deadline extension for the SIM reregistration was announced by the Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, most of the registration centers were abandoned

Patronage dropped drastically, he said.

The Ghana Card is the main document for the recent re-registration of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. But due to the inability of many to get their card, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful extended the July 31 deadline by two more months. It was the second extension after the first on Thursday, March 31.

Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful, while addressing the press on Sunday, said she had to extend the deadline again “reluctantly”.

“Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a final conditional extension.”

She said this latest decision will take the exercise, which started on Friday, October 1, to exactly a year since it started.

“The programme will be extended to 30th September to end on the anniversary of its commencement. That will give us one full year of SIM registration.”

Prof Attafuah told host Alfred Ocansey on TV3‘s Ghana Tonight on Monday, August 1 “What the Minister said is true that a lot of people don’t have the Ghana Card but the reason is an empirical question which you must assist as journalist. The fact of the matter is that people have to be motivated, themselves to go out there and get the Ghana Card.

“When the Minister announced the extension of the SIM card registration deadline in March the additional registration centres became ghost registration centres, the NIA offices were completely vacated, patronage went down by more than 90 percent, we had to close down those offices.

“So it is an empirical question about the attitude of some of us Ghanaians about deadlines and about how we also allocate our time and . Mind you, during the mass registration we reached the point where you go to a registration centre where cards were there and people were not going for their cards.”

Source: 3news.com|Ghana