Ghana has once again extended the deadline for the registration of sim cards to September 30, 2022.
Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful announced the new deadline on Sunday, July 31, 2022, when she addressed the media from the Ministry of Information in Accra.
She explained that “The program will be extended to 30th September to end on the anniversary of its commencement. That will give us one full year of SIM registration. It will be reviewed at the end of this month and any SIM that has not been fully registered by the end of August will be barred from receiving certain services including voice and data services.”
“Non-resident Ghanaians who do not have the Ghana card can use their passports to complete the process but will be required to update their details with the Ghana card once they acquire it. They have up till December 2022 to do so. I urge them to comply with these directives and to contact the NCA if they have any peculiar challenges.”
This is the second time the deadline has been extended. It was initially extended in March 2022.
According to the Minister, about 26 million sim cards out of about 42 million voice sims are yet to be registered.
She noted that “As at 20th July, 2022 the total number of Voice SIMs stood at 41, 979,398. Out of this number, 15,395,607 have linked their Ghana Card to their sim cards.”
She said a number of factors accounted for the delay in sim registration, saying “The NIA has not been able to issue all eligible persons with the Ghana Card. As at Thursday July 21, 2022, 16,969,034 individuals have registered for the Ghana Card, with about 16,535,623 cards printed. 15,702,719 cards have been issued whereas some 832,904 cards have not been distributed or collected.”
According to her, “I have also been informed that some people who have obtained quick loans from their service providers have decided not to register those SIMs to avoid repaying the loans. That is evil corruption and you will be found out.”
“The statistics indicate that there was a 90% drop in sim registrations as soon as the first deadline was extended on 21st March. Until a week ago, there were no queues at any registration center. People started rushing to register when they realized the deadline was imminent after going to sleep when it was extended.”
Self-Service SIM Registration App
She stated that “The Self-Service SIM Registration App will be ready for commercial launch on Tuesday 2nd August as Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity and Application Programming Interface (API) integration with all MNOs was only completed this weekend due to unavoidable circumstances.”
“Adequate time will also be required for publicity and public education on the use of the Self-Service SIM Registration App.”
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