It'll be more expensive to use unregistered SIM after deadline - Communications Minister warns

Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has cautioned Ghanaians who haven't registered their SIM cards not to relax due to the extension of the registration deadline.

The SIM re-registration was supposed to end on Sunday, July 31 but the deadline has been extended to September 30, 2022.

The Ministry has also indicated that a self-service SIM re-registration App will be ready for commercial launch on Tuesday, August 2, 2022.

This is to aid in dealing with the challenges associated with the ongoing SIM re-registration exercise.

Each registration via the app which will be available for download on both android and IOS this week will be subject to a GH¢5 surcharge.

As of Sunday 31st July, 2022, various sim card re-registration centres were choked with dozens of Ghanaians anxious to meet the deadline to avoid deactivation but immediately after the Minister announced an extension to September 30, 2022, the huge numbers that thronged the centers have sudenly vanished.

Speaking in an interview on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful cautioned those waiting for the September deadline in hope that there will be another extension to refrain from such attitude.

She encouraged them to take advantage of the opportunity to acquire their Ghana Card and register their SIM cards stressing, "the more we are extending, it becomes an additional cost" to the network operators and the National Communications Authority.

She noted that the extension is conditional, in that, those who haven't yet registered will no longer enjoy full mobile services.

"This one is conditional extension. We will review the process by the end of August . . . There are genuine challenges with some of the measures. In the coming days, we will see how we can resolve those, but at the end of August, when we review the process and still see the 'no queues' as we are seeing now, then those who haven't registered their SIM card will find out that their data is running faster than usual. It will be more expensive to use an unregistered SIM than to use a registered SIM and it's deliberate. There are other services which will be made difficult for you to use on your phone," she said.

She explained the significance of the registration exercise saying, "mobile money fraud, identity fraud, those extorting money from people and recent so-called financial services used to defraud people is all through our mobile devices. The registration will facilitate the search for those involved in these fraudulent activities".

"It is in our interest to register our SIM cards so we can reduce the SIM card-based fraud and the criminal offences in our system . . . Let's ensure every person would have registered by the end of September," she added.