Govt Extends Sim Registration With Ghana Card Again

Following the backlash from Ghanaians, the Ministry of Communication and Digitalization has extended the deadline for sim registration across the country to September 30^th.

This announcement was made by the sector Minister, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful during a press briefing on Sunday, 31st July, 2022.

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“The programme will be extended to 30 September to end the anniversary of its commencement which will give us a full year. Any sim that has not been registered by end of August will be barred from receiving services.,” she said.

“It will also be more expensive to use unregistered sims. The full rate of punitive measures will be announce at another press briefing in September. Kindly not blame your service provider when you suffer that fate”, she added.

The Minister earlier on announced that the sim card registration was not going to be extended after the deadline.

According to the Minister, Ghanaians and everyone who is yet to register their SIM cards should take opportunity of the ongoing process which will end on July 31, 2022.

She said this at a forum by the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Kumasi.

“I therefore take this opportunity to urge all those who’ve not registered their SIM cards to do so as the deadline of 31st July, 2022 will not be extended,” she said.

However, the complaints from most Ghanaians caused the government to rescind its decision.

She also stated that the exercise will ultimately help build a credible and safe SIM Card database in Ghana.

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“Most people access their internet through their mobile devices. We must make sure that they do so safely. We must make it difficult for the criminals who hack our systems and defraud us through multiple online channels to operate, and this SIM registration exercise is one of the steps the government is taking in that regard. Essentially this stresses the point that this exercise will enable the establishment of a subscriber database with integrity to keep the consumers safe from scams and fraud,” she noted.

The re-registration of SIM cards initially started on October 1, 2021 and ended on March 31, 2022. But the Ministry extended it to July 31, 2022, because most Ghanaians were yet to obtain their Ghana card.

The Ghana card is the only national identification card that can be used for the SIM registration.