Former Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, has stated that Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communication and Digitalization, must be fully blamed for the disorganized nature of SIM card re-registration.
In a press statement issued on July 31, hours after the Minister announced a postponement of the re-registration deadline, the former lawmaker said it was regrettable that Ursula had failed to render an apology to the populace.
"We note with disappointment the Minister of Communications’ announcement today on the chaotic SIM re-registration exercise where she failed to apologize to Ghanaians for the chaos associated with the exercise.
"The confusion and chaos that have characterized the illegal sim-card registration exercise should be blamed at the doorsteps of the Minister for Communications," the statement read in part.
The statement also cautioned the Minister against imposing a surcharge on persons who use a yet-to-be released mobile application to undertake the registration.
It pointed out that she did not have Parliamentary approval to impose the said charge thus doing so will be illegal.
"This surcharge as announced by the Minister would be illegal if collected. The Minister has been an MP for some time and should know what ought to be done to impose fees or charges. She has not sought parliamentary approval and has no authority to impose fees or charges without parliamentary approval," the statement added.
SIM re-registration deadline postponed
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, on July 31, 2022 announced that the deadline for the SIM card re-registration has been extended to September 30, 2022.
Addressing the media on Sunday the government appointee said she “reluctantly” extended the exercise which was scheduled to end on July 31, 2022.
The Minister said the extension 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.
“Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a final conditional extension.
"The pogramme will be extended to 30th September 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 stated.
The SIM card registration exercise began on 31st October 2021 and was expected to end on 31st March 2022 but as of 17th March, over 14 million SIM cards had been linked to the Ghana Card with over 10 million Bio-Captures conducted and 99,445 new SIMs registered.
Due to a number of factors including the fact that over 7.5 million citizens and residents were yet to obtain Ghana Cards to enable them register their SIM cards, it was clear the deadline for completion of the registration of the remaining active SIM cards could not be met.
As a result, the ministry extended the deadline to July 31, 2022. However reports from multiple media outlets including GhanaWeb indicated that as of Saturday, July 30, thousands have either not registered their Ghana Card or SIM cards.
This led to several calls on the government and the ministry to cause an extension to the July 31 deadline.
For Immediate Release
31st July 2022
RESPONSE TO MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS’ ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE CHAOTIC SIM RE-REGISTRATION EXERCISE
We note with disappointment the Minister of Communications’ announcement today on the chaotic SIM re-registration exercise where she failed to apologize to Ghanaians for the chaos associated with the exercise.
The confusion and chaos that have characterized the illegal sim-card registration exercise should be blamed at the doorsteps of the Minister for Communications.
Also disappointing was the Minister’s indication that a “SIM Registration App will be available for download on both android and IOS” this week and that “each registration via the app will be subject to a 5 cedi surcharge.”
This surcharge as announced by the Minister would be illegal if collected. The Minister has been an MP for some time and should know what ought to be done to impose fees or charges. She has not sought parliamentary approval and has no authority to impose fees or charges without parliamentary approval.
Secondly, at a time of an economic meltdown where serious governments all over the world are giving their citizens relief packages to ease the burden of the recession, it is disappointing that the Minister will seek to illegally impose further burden on the already struggling Ghanaian public.
We call on her to abandon this insensitive announcement to illegally impose a surcharge of GHc 5 on Ghanaians.
We the Concerned Mobile Network Subscribers maintain that the dehumanizing nature of the roll out was avoidable.
The whole exercise lacked a well thought-through implementation strategy, hence the confusion and flip flop.
END.
Signed
Ras Mubarak.
Ras Mubarak