In an interview with Accra-based Joy FM on October 17, the legislator berated the minister for threatening that SIM card vendors could be sued and jailed for 5 years for selling pre-registered SIMs.
The MP contended that the admission of the minister in her recent statement that some people have used one Ghana Card to register more than the 10 SIMs allowed threshold demonstrated how “flawed” the reregistration exercise has been.
He holds the view that an effective system put in place should have been able to detect and prevent SIM reregistration beyond the allowed 10 SIMs.
“The Minister in her own statement admits that the reregistration she is doing is flawed because agents and vendors have registered more than 10 SIM cards using one Ghana Card during the process.
“It shows you how inefficient and incompetent the minister is because if you say a Ghanaian should not be able to register more than 10 SIM cards with one Ghana Card and the system you put in place does not put the ability to prevent people from registering more than 10 SIM cards…you are now asking vendors and agents who have created preregistered SIMs and are selling them to deactivate them because they’ll be prosecuted for 5 years. How is it that the process we were told will clean up the SIM card registry has now created preregistered SIMs?” Sam George quizzed.
“Your process that should clean up the SIM card register has created more fraudulent SIM cards in the system. So on what basis is she going to deactivate anybody’s SIM card because she herself is admitting that there are SIM cards now that have been preregistered based on her process.
“If this was a proper country, the minister should be facing prosecutions for causing financial loss to the state and she shouldn’t be holding her office as minister of state because she has shown us she is incompetent and not fit to hold such a sensitive office,” he added.
Background
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful in a statement dated October 17 indicated that persons who have completed stage one (linking Ghana card to SIM) of the reregistration process have been given till the end of this month to complete the process of risk losing voice and data services.
She added that those who have not begun the process at all will have their unregistered SIM cards ‘progressively’ blocked as well.
“All SIM Cards that have been linked to Ghana Cards (i.e. completed Stage 1 registration), but have not completed their Stage 2 registration will be blocked from the end of October.
“This is not an extension of the deadline but a temporary moratorium to encourage these individuals to complete the process. If they have any peculiar challenges, they should contact the NCA.
“These good people have the Ghana card, have started the process and will be encouraged to complete it with this gentle reminder. All other unregistered SIMs will also be blocked progressively,” part of the statement read.
Ursula Owusu also admonished SIM card vendors against selling pre-registered SIMs stating they could spend 5 years in prison if found guilty of the act.
On data-only SIMs, the minister added that they have till the end of November 30 to complete the reregistration exercise.
“All data-only SIMs including those issued by Surfline, Busy Internet, Telesol, and any institution such as ECG, have up to the end of November to complete registration.
“Some people have registered more than ten (10) SIM Cards for personal use and the database has identified it and will clean it up. They should, as a matter of urgency, delink the unwanted SIM Cards immediately because any excess SIM Cards over the individual limit of 10 SIMs per person will be removed from the database and blocked.
“This will also address issues of pre-registered SIMS. Let me remind all SIM card vendors that it is an offence to pre-register and sell SIM cards. The NCA has been directed to conduct mystery shopping and enforce the law against those miscreants. If found guilty, they could be imprisoned for up to 5 years,” the statement continued.
According to data put out by the minister, a total of 18,930,664 SIM Cards have been fully registered while 28,959,006 SIM Cards have been linked to Ghana Cards - representing 67.28% of the 42,749,662 total SIM cards issued nationally.
This is between 1st October 2021 and 4th October 2022.
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DS/PEN
Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful