SIM registration hits 19m as NCA postpones deadline

Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Communications

Encouraged by the level of cooperation from telecoms operators and the increasing level of patronage of the subscriber identity module (SIM) registration, the National Communication Authority has postponed the deadline for the registration of existing SIM numbers.

Friday, 30th September would have been the deadline for mobile phone subscribers to register their SIM cards. This is the second time, after the authority extended the deadline in June after appeals from users, the network operators and groups like policy think tank IMANI Ghana.

The Director General of NCA Paa Rock Van Percy told Dzifa Bampoh on Joy FM's Top Story that people are now living up their civic responsibilities and are doing the right. He said it would, therefore, be unfair to “unduly penalize” them because there was an error on their data.

He explained that the 30th June deadline was extended to leave a window of opportunity for subscribers and also to enable the NCA “sanitise their database”.

“Now we have done that and coming close to the 90-day period, we realised that the exercise must continue; we haven't completely exhausted cleaning up the irregular or invalid registration.”

Mr Van Percy said at the end of June, a little over 18 million persons had been captured on the national subscriber database, but “today we are talking about something in excess of 19 million.”

He noted that although the deactivation is on hold, he was certain “at some stage, no doubt, it will come to a closure”.

He said his outfit is enjoying “very progressive and cordial discussions” with the Chief Executives of telecoms operators and are working closely to bring closure to the registrations exercise.

Minister for Communications, Haruna Iddrisu urged all existing subscribers to take advantage of the window of opportunity the NCA has provided to register their SIM cards.

“Our primary objective is to see an end to an era of anonymous text messages, death text messages, our inability to trace fraud of persons whose identities remain unknown with the use of SIM registration, but we will need to take a definite position, and that would be done by the NCA.”

Story by Ghana/Myjoyonline.com/Isaac Essel