The number of unregistered SIM cards in the country stood at 8.7 million – representing 20.40 percent of the 42.5 million SIMs – as of February 9, 2023 Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has revealed.
The over-8 million represents those cards whose owners have not attempted to link their Ghana Cards to their SIMs.
Of the total 42.5 million existing SIMs, however, 33.8 million representing 79.60 percent have completed stage-one of the registration, which entails linking one’s Ghana Card to the SIM card.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful further noted that the number of people who have completed the process of SIM registration – that is, stage two which entails the biometric capturing of SIM card owners data – are 25.2 million.
The minister’s comments were captured in Parliament’s Order Paper of Tuesday, 14th February 2023, and were in response to a question from Member of Parliament (MPs) for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, regarding progress of the SIM card re-registration exercise.
According to the document, the total number of data SIMs is 32,287 – of which only 19,514 have been successfully registered while 12,773 have not.
The minister, who is also MP for Ablekuma West, further appealed for fellow MPs to encourage their constituents to register their SIMs in support of government’s vision to ensure digital safety.
“A self-service application has been developed to enable people complete the registration exercise in the comfort of their homes,” she added.
Appeal to NIA
The Ghana Card is the main identification document in Ghana currently, without which one cannot register his or her SIM card.
However, since the SIM card re-registration exercise began, a lot of Ghanaians have complained about the stress in obtaining the Ghana Card at the National Identification Authority (NIA) offices. A situation that has contributed to most citizens and foreign nationals’ inability to re-register their SIMs.
Answering a question from the MP for Kpando, Della Sowah, regarding the subject, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful urged the Interior Ministry and the NIA to increase their registration centres and days of operation to enable more Ghanaians obtain the Ghana Card.
“The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD), as part of the SIM card registration exercise, continues to collaborate with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to enable seamless registration of SIMs. The Ministry of Interior is however the supervisory Ministry of the NIA, not the MoCD; but we will continue encouraging them to increase the number of registrations per day in the country,” she said.
