Minority wants deadline for SIM card re-registration extended further

The Minority in Parliament is calling for the extension of the SIM card re-registration to the end of 2022 and for the Voter’s ID to be used as a valid ID for the process, in addition to the Ghana Card.

Speaking to Citi News, the Bunkpurugu MP, Abed-nego Bandim, also reiterated the Minority’s concerns with the mode of identification for re-registering SIM cards.

“We think that it should be extended to the end of the year. For the September deadline, we have still not enabled people to obtain the Ghana Card to register their SIM Card,” Mr. Bandim said.

“We have been calling for the other national ID card to be used to register SIM Cards, as it was done in 2021.”

“The Minister has to relook at the whole exercise, extend it to the end of the year and allow the voter ID card which is used to elect Members of Parliament and used to elect the President for people to use to register their SIM cards,” the MP explained.

The government had initially set July 31 as the deadline for all persons to re-register their SIM cards with their Ghana Cards.

Persons who had failed to comply with the directive would have had their SIM cards deactivated.

The regulations are 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.

Statistics from the National Communication Authority (NCA) show that as of Thursday, July 21, 2022, 16,969,034 individuals had registered for the Ghana Card, with about 16,535,623 cards printed, while 15,395,607 had linked their Ghana Card to their SIM cards.

To boost the registration process, the government has put in place a self-service registration application, which will be made available on both Android and IOS platforms this week.

Source: CNR