SIM card re-registration deadline: Better eat humble pie and extend it again — Sam George to Ursula Owusu

What happened to many SIM card subscribers a few weeks ago will be repeated after September 30.

On July 31, when many had been crying and agitating for an extension of the earlier deadline for the SIM Card re-registration exercise, the Minister, Hon. Ursula Owusu Ekuful, in her words, reluctantly extended it to Friday, September 30.

According to the Ministry, any unregistered SIM card after the deadline will be barred from using telecommunications services.

Responding to the pending issue on Accra-based Joy News’ Upfront show on Thursday, September 29, monitored by ModernGhana News, Samuel Nartey George, MP for Ningo Prampram, said the deadline idea must be aborted.

He is asking the Minister to humble herself and extend the deadline once more until those still without Ghana cards get them to register their SIM cards.

“The Minister of Communication would have to eat the humble pie by the close of the day tomorrow. She will have to postpone the deadline. She is not a listening Minister,” he said.

According to the outspoken legislator, the Minister refused to take the Minority's advice on the most effective way to carry out the exercise without punishing citizens.

“She mocked the suggestions we gave her on how to o about the re-registration and called it fanciful noises. If she had listened we wouldn't have been where we are now,” he noted

According to him, “the Minister has failed to recognise that we have some physically challenged individuals whose fingerprints have not been captured. How are they going to register?”

Meanwhile, according to the National Identification Authority, over two million Ghanaians will not be able to receive their Ghana cards even by the end of the year, meaning these people will not be able to make or receive phone calls should the minister refuse to extend the deadline.