Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Hon. Ursula Owusu Ekuful has admonished persons affected by the blockage of SIM cards by the National Communications Authority after the May 31 deadline , to take steps to complete the registration or forever lose access to the cards.
Speaking at a Parliamentary session, Hon. Owusu Ekuful she emphasized that those persons who failed to complete the second phase of the SIM registration were among the majority of persons affected and urged them to take concrete steps to avoid the numbers being blocked permanently .
” Per my checks from the NCA , a vast majority of persons who were affected by the deadline of May 31,2023 are those who failed or otherwise to complete the 2nd phase of the process and i will admonish them to take steps to regularize the full registration of the cards or risk losing access to the mobile numbers permanently”.
The Minister reiterated the fact that such category of persons affected have a chance of getting back access to the blocked numbers .
However, Ursula Owusu Ekuful stressed the importance and timeliness of the NCA as the regulator of the sector to give a new deadline for resolving the outstanding issues before blocking the SIM cards permanently.
” For a sector as sensitive as the telecoms sector , the regulator , the NCA has to be ahead of the game in terms of implementing the directives given by the Ministry to deal with the outstanding issues ,and given appropriate deadlines as well.
Those who are currently in this category should act promptly by contact their telecoms operator to have the issues fully resolved and get the second part done especially those who have registered for the national identity cards and have proof of same and who have not received the actual identity cards yet to present such details to the MNOs for prompt action”.
The directive for the SIM card registration as issued by the NCA was originally scheduled to start on October 1, 2021 and end on March 31,2022.
Per the directive, the Ghanacard produced by the National Identification Authority was to be the sole document required for the process.
However , due to delays in getting the identity cards , the regulator extended the deadline by 2 months to May 31,2023 to give some time to those who did not have the cards to do so.
