Ghana Card Remains Sole ID For SIM registration; NCA Trashes Sam George’s Claim
The National Communications Authority (NCA) has clarified that the Ghana Card remains the only Identity Card acceptable for the ongoing SIM registration exercise.
It, therefore, debunked reports that the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have been directed to accept the Voter’s Identity card for the exercise.
Over the weekend, the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram constituency, Sam George announced the Minister for Communication and Digitalisation had agreed to accept the Voter’s ID card in addition to the Ghana card for the SIM registration exercise.
“Our struggles have yielded success. We have had a breakthrough. I can reliably inform you that the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation Ghana has finally seen wisdom in our position,” he said in a Facebook post.
He added that the Ministry through the NCA had given a directive to the MNOs to accept the Voter’s ID.
“They have through the National Communications Authority Ghana directed the MNOs to accept the Voter’s ID Card as a document for the registration of our SIM cards. Finally, Ursula Owusu has given in to the power and will of the people. This is our collective victory.”
Discrediting the information, the Authority said it had not given such a directive to the MNOs.
It explained that on Friday, during a SIM registration technical meeting, stakeholders discussed updating the SIM registration App to allow temporal use of the voter’s ID.
It added, “That development effort will take several weeks if not months to complete- and the deep dive discussion on the integration effort with the MNO and BWAs hasn’t even been held. A similar effort with passport integration has taken more than three months and counting and still not complete.
The NCA noted that the general public will be informed about the development once it’s ready.
Many Ghanaians do not have a Ghana card which has led to a section of them boycotting the registration exercise and suing the NCA over the use of the card.
The unavailability of the Ghana Card to the public has been cited among the reasons for the extension of the deadlines by the Ministry of Communication.
At the end of the July 31 deadline, 7.5 million people didn’t have their Ghana Cards.
The SIM registration exercise which began on October 1, 2021, was scheduled to end on March 31, 2022, however, the Minister extended the exercise to July 31.
At the end of July, the Minister “reluctantly” extended the exercise again to September 30 citing challenges in the registration exercise, challenges with the issuance of Ghana cards, etc.
Ahead of the September 30 deadline, the NCA instituted some punitive measures to compel the unregistered SIM users to undertake the exercise.
It included the blockage of outgoing calls and data services for 48 hours each week and the re-routing of outgoing calls to an Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) for a SIM registration sensitisation message.
Although this compelled some unregistered SIM users to register their cards, it was halted after it prompted a number of SIM users to sue the NCA.
In a press statement dated October 17 while the Ministry extended the deadline for the fourth time and branded it as a “moratorium”, it said 28,959,006 SIM cards had been linked to Ghana cards while 18, 930,664 SIM cards had completed both stages of the registration exercise.
Meanwhile, it said almost 10 million SIM card users had completed the first stage and had, however, refused to proceed with the second stage to complete the registration.
The Ministry indicated that SIM cards which haven’t been fully registered will be deactivated from the end of October 2022, however, as of November 7, the sanctions have not been enforced.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
