To the chagrin of Ghanaians, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has announced that over 8 million unregistered SIM cards have been disabled as a result of punitive measures implemented by the National Communications Authority and the Ministry of Communication and Digitalization.
According to Madam Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communication and Digitalization, who revealed this to reporters on the sidelines of the 14th ITU Kaleidoscope competition, the move is to help weed out crooks who use the anonymity of the internet to deceive others.
“Those who have linked their SIM cards to their Ghana card in the first phase of the registration exercise, but have not gone on to conclude the registration exercise by doing the biometric capture phase, are those whose SIMs have been blocked.
“It is important that we do this because without the security of our devices we are all at risk. There are fraudsters and criminals out there who are using the anonymity of the internet and social media to defraud others, and we need to ensure that no one can hide behind this anonymity.”
The SIM re-registration process began in October 2021, when the government passed a new law requiring mobile subscribers to link their SIM cards with their national identity cards (Ghana Cards) or risk being disconnected.
The NCA set November 30, 2022, as the deadline for subscribers who had only completed stage one of the registration process (linkage to the Ghana Card) but not stage two (biometric capture).
Source: Conergist.com