Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the minister of communications and digitalization, has suggested that persons who consciously chose not to participate in the SIM Re-registration effort will be penalised.
This comes after the Ministry’s October deadline, which was given to encourage SIM users to re-register their cards, expired.
However, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful maintained that in order to address the difficulties faced by registrants with legitimate worries, her ministry is in contact with the National Identification Authority (NIA).
She pleaded with Ghanaians to support the steps the government is putting in place to preserve the digital realm while speaking on the sidelines of the Technology Breakfast Meeting, which was organized to increase public sector chief executives’ understanding of the government’s digitalization effort.
“We all need to ensure that we protect the systems that we are putting in place. This is one aspect of it, but the SIM re-registration is also another aspect of it.
There are some who have genuine concerns, and we are working with the NIA to [address them]. But there are others who have the Ghana cards but have not completed the process.
So clearly, either they do not intend to, or are unwilling to, so we will have some measures to announce in due course soon,” the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation explained.
The Ministry announced in October that 28,959,006 SIM cards have been linked to Ghana Cards so far.
This number represents 67.28% of the 42,749,662 total SIM cards issued nationally.
Furthermore, 18,930,664 SIM Cards have been fully registered, representing 44.28% of the total SIM cards issued.