Mrs Owusu-Ekuful stressed that "SIM registration, when undertaken correctly as we intend to do, will reduce or eliminate fraudulent and criminal activities, help authorities ascertain the accurate number of valid and accurate SIMs on the networks, enable operators to build better demographics of their customer base and help them develop products and services to suit the various groupings".
The Ghana card provides the basis for a successful sim registration exercise this time", she said.
"The prevalence of fake IDs and a non-existent system of verifying the IDs, led to unscrupulous individuals procuring hundreds of SIM Cards for SIM Boxing leading to the loss of revenue for the state. Mrs Owusu-Ekuful indicated that the above situation also led to the influx of pre-registered SIM Cards in the system hence their inability to track and trace people who commit crimes with the SIM cards. "This isn’t the first attempt to register sims but all the previous efforts failed because of the lack of a verifiable secure identification document" she noted. She further explained that in the case of foreigners staying in Ghana for less than 90 days, a valid passport or other travel document is required. Only the National Identity Card (Ghana Card) issued to an individual shall be used for registration of SIM cards of citizens, foreign residents and foreigners staying in Ghana for more than 90 days. The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said this when she took her turn at the Minister's Press Briefing at the Ministry of Information's Press Center on, Sunday, 5th September, 2021.Īccording to her, every subscriber is required to provide the name and residential or occupational address, date of birth, in the case of an individual and Certificate of Incorporation, in the case of a body corporate or registration, in the case of a partnership or an unincorporated body of persons and an identification document.
The Subscriber Identity Module Registration Regulations, 2011, L.I 2006 mandates network operators or service providers to activate a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) only after the subscriber registers the SIM as directed by the NCA. The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD) will launch the National SIM Card Registration Exercise across the country on, 1 October 2021.