Minister of Communications and Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West Constituency, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has announced that more than 28 million mobile SIM cards have been successfully registered with the Ghana Card.
When briefing Parliament on Thursday, June 8, 2023, she said that the re-registration would help in the reduction of criminal activities and guarantee the safety of SIM card-based transactions, and that the registration exercise, which began on October 1, 2021, would go a long way towards helping to establish a reliable SIM database.
She reported that 29,947,561 SIM cards were currently in use, of which 28,948,142 had been completely registered and 999,419 had been excluded.
According to what Ursula Owusu talked about, mobile money account holders can get their money back by contacting the Bank of Ghana. She reassured worried customers that although they will be unable to use their SIM cards for mobile-related transactions, their money will be retrieved through the appropriate channels.
It is estimated that 7.4 million mobile money accounts were deactivated because their owners failed to register them.
The deputy ranking member of Parliament’s Communications Committee, Sam George, recently stated that Speaker Alban Bagbin’s official SIM card, which is registered in the name of Parliament, has been deactivated despite being properly registered.
According to him, this demonstrates the problems with the NCA’s present approach to blocking SIM cards. While addressing the House, he stated that the exercise is having a significant economic impact on many professions, including the Speaker’s.
“We should have had this briefing today if possible because we are talking about over 8 million SIM cards having been disconnected, including even the SIM card of the Speaker of Parliament. His official SIM card was disconnected, even though it was registered in the name of the Parliament of Ghana. We have judges, we have lawyers, we have doctors, and MPs whose SIM cards were disconnected; even me, my SIM card was also disconnected,” Sam George said.
He said it was high time to admit that the National Identification Authority (NIA), particularly its regional offices, had failed to meet its obligations to give ID cards to those who had applied for them. He further stated that the authority has to come before the House to explain the long wait times for Ghana cards.
