The Ministry of Communications and Digitalization (MoCD) has announced that all unregistered SIM cards will be completely deactivated on November 30, 2022.
The Ministry, in a statement issued on November 11, 2022, said: “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″.
The statement added that the move was part of measures taken by the government to ensure a secure and safe digital ecosystem. It said there had been a reduction in SIM-related fraud following the commencement of the SIM registration exercise.
ICT should be accessible to all without any risk and the SIM Registration exercise will solve a lot of issues in the industry,” the statement signed by the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu said.
“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”.
Completed registrations
The statement further disclosed that almost 70% of SIM card users have completed the two phases of registration.
Currently, 30,011,082 have completed the first stage (Linking of Ghana Card to SIM Number) while as of November 9, 2022, 20,892,970 subscribers, had completed the SIM card registration (linkage and biometric).
The statement added that “One key reason why some of those who have linked phone numbers to Ghana cards have been unable to complete the bio capture of stage two is that they used other people’s cards to link their numbers”.
This includes vendors who used the cards of others without the knowledge or consent of the card owners.
Their inability to complete phase two attests to the robustness of the authentication process designed into the sim registration architecture. It will flush out all fakes. You cannot use someone else’s Ghana card to register your sim,” the statement said.
“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”.
