Several subscribers to voice and data SIM cards who have not completed the mandated registration process may lose their numbers today.
This is due to the November 30, 2022 deadline the regulator of telecommunications in the country, National Communications Authority (NCA), gave for every user of SIMs to have it registered with their Ghana Card.
At the time of writing this report yesterday, the regulator had not made public the number of the SIM Cards that will be deactivated by all the mobile telecommunication networks. At least, there are four companies providing voice and data SIM card in the country.
MTN GHANA
MTN Ghana had stated in a release that it will completely deactivate the SIM cards of 5,701,149 subscribers on December 1, 2022.
They are those who have completed Stage 1 (Linkage of Ghana Card ID to SIM Card) but have not completed Stage 2 (Biometric Capture) (“Not fully registered with the Ghana Card”)
As of November 26, 2022 – 22,112,943 MTN Ghana subscribers had successfully linked their Ghana cards to their SIM cards (Stage 1), while 16,411,794 had successfully completed the bio-capture phase (Stage 2).
In the statement issued this week, MTN Ghana said it had already complied with the first stage of NCA’s directive by deactivating the data services of SIM Cards that have not fully registered with the Ghana Card,as of November 20, 2022 as directed.
It explained that“Customers should note that a fully registered SIM card is one that has successfully completed both Stage 1 (Linkage) and Stage 2 (Bio-capture).
All deactivated SIM cards can be reactivated within six months, from December 01, 2022 (the date of deactivation), by completing the bio-capture process.”
Meanwhile, deactivated SIM cards will be recycled if they are not reactivated by the end of May 2023, the company has assured.
POSTPONEMENT
This is not the first-time that a threat of disconnecting unregistered SIMs has been issued. People suffered two days of interruption in their networks, and paid more for data.
When that happened, there was public outcry and many trooped to the various centres of their service providers to have their SIM cards registered.
However, the regulator was compelled to reschedule its earlier deadline resulting from concerns that the National Identification Authority (NIA) had not been able to issue Ghana Cards to a lot of people.
The deadline was postponed again to the last day of November 2022 yesterday, with a warning that there would be no mercy thereafter.
DIGITAL INCLUSION
The Ministry of Communications and Digitilisation had said in a statement that the SIM registration exercise was not meant to make life difficult for subscribers, but to protect consumers and businesses.
It said the priority of the Ministry had always been to ensure digital inclusion and to provide a secure environment for Ghanaians to access digital services.
As at November 9, this year, 20,892,970 subscribers, had completed the SIM card registration (linkage and biometric), the ministry said.
In the statement issued two days after, the ministry warned that “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.”
Observing that some subscribers were appearing to be recalcitrant, birthing the social media slang “stubborn academy” the release said a further announcement will be made on measures to accommodate those who genuinely do not have Ghana cards, once the ongoing consultations have been completed.
