The announcement by the Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, that persons who have linked their Ghana Cards to their SIM Cards but have not proceeded to fully reregister their SIM will lose data and voice services at the end of October 2022 has given rise to many questions.
The questions have raised concerns about whether or not the government of the day is actually serious about its attempts to streamline the SIM registration system in the country.
Critics have questioned whether or not the sector minister will ever go by her word with regards to the blocking of unregistered SIM cards in the country.
The latest announcement by the minister, which she describes as a grace period, brings the number of times she has given a deadline for the registration to four.
Here are all the times Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has given deadlines for the SIM re-registration but has not lived up to them:
March 2022
The government of Ghana stated in 2021 that effective October, all SIM cards in the country should be re-registered.
This was because the government has identified that there was a challenge with the 2010/2011 SIM registration where there were records of fake ID numbers as well as fictitious names for existing SIM registration databases.
The government explained that the integrity of existing SIM registration databases was therefore compromised by the non-verification of the identities used for registration.
The deadline for that registration was supposed to be in March 2022.
July 31, 2022
When the March 2022 deadline ended, the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, announced an extension of the date.
This was the second time a new deadline had been given.
The new deadline was said to be at the end of July 2022.
September 30, 2022
Again, at the end of the previous deadline, the minister returned to give a new extended date for September 30, 2022.
In this instance, however she indicated that the end of August 2022, people who had not fully or partially registered their cards would be prevented from undertaking certain services on their networks.
When the time came, a number of such culprits did experience this ‘punishment’ but it was short-lived.
October 31, 2022, grace period
In the most recent statement, the sector minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, stated that the government had decided to give a grace period to persons who have linked their Ghana Card to their SIM in the reregistration process.
She added that this was a moratorium to serve as encouragement for such people to complete their registration.
“All SIM Cards that have been linked to Ghana Cards (i.e. completed Stage 1 registration), but have not completed their Stage 2 registration will be blocked from the end of October.
“This is not an extension of the deadline but a temporary moratorium to encourage these individuals to complete the process. If they have any peculiar challenges, they should contact the NCA.
“These good people have the Ghana card, have started the process and will be encouraged to complete it with this gentle reminder. All other unregistered SIMs will also be blocked progressively,” part of the statement read.