The Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has announced new measures against Ghanaians with Ghana cards who have refused to register their SIM cards.
According to the Minister, Ghanaians who have completed stage one of the SIM registration process by linking their Ghana cards to their SIM cards but have not completed stage two will have their numbers blocked from accessing voice and data services by November 20th.
The Minister added that their numbers would then be completely deactivated on November 30th, 2022.
This was contained in a statement released by the Ministry on Friday, November 11th 2022.
“As part of measures being taken to ensure a secure and safe digital ecosystem, the Government embarked on the SIM Registration Exercise. This exercise is not meant to make life difficult for subscribers, but to protect consumers and businesses. The priority of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation has always been to ensure digital inclusion and to provide a secure environment for Ghanaians to access digital services. The Ministry has been working tirelessly on the development and implementation of policies to this effect,” the statement began.
“ICT should be accessible to all without any risk and the SIM Registration exercise will solve a lot of issues in the industry. We can all attest to the fact that there has been a noticeable decline in SIM-related fraud since the commencement of the Registration Exercise. Currently, 30,011,082 have completed the first stage (Linking of Ghana Card to SIM Number). As at 9th November 2022, 20,892,970 subscribers, had completed the SIM card registration (linkage and biometric). Almost 70% of these registrations have been completed,”
The statement continued and with a warning of the impending deadline.
“Despite ample opportunity afforded all to complete the registration of their SIM cards, some who have the Ghana cards and have begun the process have failed to complete the registration. That is their choice and we cannot begrudge them.
“All SIM cards which have completed the first stage of the registration exercise but not done the second phase will be blocked from accessing data services on 20th November 2022 and completely deactivated on 30th November 2022.” it added.
The Minister concluded by saying there will be a forthcoming announcement regarding those who genuinely do not have their Ghana cards.
“A further announcement will be made shortly on measures to accommodate those who genuinely do not have Ghana cards, once the ongoing consultations have been completed.”
Source: theGhanaianVoice.Com