Ursula Owusu's blocking of unregistered SIM cards blows in her face?

In announcing the extension of the exercise to September 30, 2022, the Minister said it had become necessary owing to challenges such as the delays in the rollout of a self-serving registration app as well as delays in the acquisition of Ghana Cards, which is the mandatory document for the registration for some SIM card users.

"Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a final conditional extension," she said.

The Minister, as part of her announcement, indicated the institution of punitive measures against persons using unregistered SIM cards.

"The programme will be extended to September 30 to end on the anniversary of its commencement. That will give us one full year of SIM registration to be reviewed at the end of this month, and any SIM that has not been fully registered by the end of August will be barred from fully receiving certain services, including voice and data services. It will also be more expensive to use unregistered SIMs. The full range of punitive measures will be announced at another press briefing in September," the Minister added.

But even before the September 30 deadline, the National Communications Authority, which is an agency of the Communications Ministry and the regulator of the telecommunication industry, issued an order to the Telcos to commence instituting punitive measures against unregistered SIM card users.

This was after the Ministry of Communications had failed to release the self-serving registration app some 21 clear days after it was supposed to be made public.

Fast forward to September 5, 2022, the Telcos, in compliance with the NCA's directive issued on September 4, commenced limiting call and data services to persons who had not re-registered their SIM cards.

While the punitive measures were in action, the Minister, in clear terms, announced via a Facebook post that there would be no extension to the registration exercise.

In what can be deemed as the Minister's own actions blowing up in her face, the implementation of the punitive measures, however, was mainly characterised by chaos as some persons who had gone through the full re-registration process complained of suffering the punitive measure.

Former President John Dramani Mahama was one of the hundreds of Ghanaians who suffered the punitive measures despite going through the full registration exercise.

In an interview granted to Accra-based TV3, Mahama said it was problematic for NCA and other regulatory bodies to implement punitive measures against persons who, through no fault of theirs, have been unable to register their SIM cards.

"The SIM registration, you can even start with new SIM cards and say that 'No Ghana Card, No SIM card' if you are purchasing. So we can start at that point while we mop up the others in the system. But if you say by September 30, everybody must have it or else we will take punitive action against you…your data will be more expensive, we will block your outgoing calls, and so on and so forth, that's a major problem.



"And I must say I suffered a bit of that experience with the call barring. On one of my phones, my outgoing calls were not going through. My SIM was blocked for two days. They have turned it back on. We went through the process of registering. They said it wasn't registered properly. That's the kind of information I got; we didn't complete the exercise, and yet they came here and sat with us and did SIM registration here, and we called them to my office, and so all my staff and everybody went through the registration, but most of my staff found their calls blocked," Mahama said.

The chaos that characterised the implementation of the punitive measures was largely on the back of concerns about the re-registration exercise and the failure of hundreds of Ghanaians to acquire their Ghana cards.

Meanwhile, Citinewsroom has reported that the NCA, in response to the backfired rollout of the punitive measures against unregistered SIM card users, has reportedly withdrawn its order for telecommunication companies (telcos) to limit call and data services to persons who have not re-registered their SIM cards.

According to citinewaroom.com, the withdrawal of the order was due to the public backlash after network service providers started implementation.

It added that since the withdrawal of the order, the network operators (telcos) have stopped blocking services to unregistered SIM cards.

The decision to use the Ghana Card as the sole identification requirement for the exercise has, since its inception, received wide criticism due to its viability and the timelines given by the Ministry for Communications.



Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament's Communications Committee, Samuel Nartey George, is a staunch critic of how the Ministry and NIA are conducting the registration exercise.

To him, there are various challenges, such as some persons being unable to link their Ghana Cards to their SIM cards. He notes that this is beside the hundreds of Ghanaians who have genuinely failed to acquire their Ghana card largely due to administrative challenges on the part of the National Identification Authority.

While the Minister has been clear in her decision to fully block unregistered SIM card users by the end of September, Sam George believes her threats will have no fruition after the deadline.

The opposition MP who is confident of his position, has since served notice that he will file a court action to challenge the legal basis of such a move by the Minister.

"Let me serve notice that the Minister's threat of SIM card being deactivated by the end of March this year is hot air; it won't happen in this country; there is no legal basis. Ghana is not a banana republic; the Minister doesn't just wake up and throw orders around.

"Mark it here today… people who have still not registered will be able to use their phone cards. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful will come back and tell you she is varying it. You cannot just wake up and say I am giving you six months; if you don't register your SIM card, you lose the SIM card.

"Go and take the SIM card and look at the SIM card, the terms and conditions that were attached to that sim card, when I got into a contract with my telco, my Mobile Network Operator, a part of it did not tell me that because of a Ghana Card I will lose the use of my SIM card.

"I have a contractual agreement with you, I have airtime I have bought on my card, and you will block it? We will sue them from here to mars, and we will win the cases. Because at the end of the day, you don't just wake up and use administrative orders. Article 296 of the constitution is clear; yes, the Minister has administrative powers, but Article 296 of the constitution, which talks about the use of discretionary powers, says it must not be arbitrary, it must not be capricious, and it must not be whimsical. This order by the Minister is arbitrary, capricious and malicious. It makes absolutely no sense," he told TV3's Jonny Hughes on Thursday, July 28, 2022.

Already, there has been a number of legal action taken against the botched attempt to cut certain services to users of unregistered SIM cards.

One such action was commenced by the Convener of the People's Project, Kwame Asare-Obeng, also known as A-Plus.



In the case which named the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the Attorney General as respondents, A Plus asked the court to declare the NCA directive that unregistered SIM cards will be blocked despite the delay in the issuance of Ghana cards as unconstitutional, null, void and of no legal effect.

However, with the September 30 deadline yet to arrive and no indications by the Minister on the way forward, it remains to be seen what will be the next line of controversy around the SIM re-registration exercise.

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