News:
Minister for Com and Dig.
December 6, 2022
The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has said its incorrect for anyone to state that Ghanaians who do not have the Ghana card have had their sim cards blocked rather the process is being conducted in phases.
According to her those who have experienced deactivation are those who completed the first phase of linking their sim to their Ghana card but had not gone on to complete the second phase.
The Ablekuma West lawmaker set the record straight when she was contributing to debate on the 2023 budget and the Ranking member on Communications in his contribution noted that those who do not have Ghana card have had their sim card blocked.
She further pointed out during debate at the plenary that the process of acquiring Ghana card started in 2018 but the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority encouraged their supporters not to acquire the Ghana card.
“If they had not done that, we will not find ourselves in this situation if people do not have Ghana card because our colleagues from the other side encouraged their members not to get the Ghana card; let us see how we work together to address the problem”.
The Minister recounted that the sim card registration exercise started in October 2021; it was supposed to end in March 2022 and was for a six month period. This has been extended several times since then based on representation and assessment made throughout the last press statement and on November 11, 2022.
Currently thirty million, eleven thousand and eighty two cards have completed the first stage of linking of Ghana card to their sim numbers as at November 9, 2022. Twenty million, eight hundred and ninety two thousand, nine hundred and seventy subscribers had completed the sim card registration linkage and biometric meaning almost seventy percent of those who have completed the first stage had completed the full registration.
Again, she stated that one key reason why some of those who have linked their phone to the Ghana card have been unable to complete the bio capture of stage two is that because they use other peoples cards to link their numbers; this include vendors who use the card of others without their knowledge and consent of the card owner.
And their inability to complete phase two attests to the robustness of the authentication process designed into the sim registration architecture which will flash out all fake ones.
Also you cannot use some ones Ghana card to register yours, despite the ample opportunity given all to complete the sim registration, some who have the Ghana card and have started the process have failed to complete the registration and so an announcement was made that all sim cards which have completed the first stage of registration exercise but have not done the second phase will be blocked from accessing data services on November 20, 2022 and completely deactivated on November 30, 2022.
“All those who have completed the first phase of the exercise, but have not gone on to complete the second phase will have their card deactivated”, she said.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com