NCA begins punitive actions against unregistered SIM card users

Strong punitive measures starts from today, September 5, 2022 against users who have refused to register their SIM card, that’s according to a press statement from the National Communications Authority (NCA).

According to the statement, outgoing calls and data services for a sequential batch of numbers will be blocked for 2 days weekly on a rotational basis.

“MNOs [Mobile Network Operators] shall divide the unregistered SIMs into five batches for the purpose of implementing this punitive measure.

“These measures shall exclude blocking of SMS to give defaulting subscribers the opportunity to initiate registration if they so wish. Subscribers who fully register their SIM Cards within the period they have been blocked will only be unblocked by the MNOs after the 48 hours to avoid the MNOs tampering with their systems intermittently,” part of the statement reads.

NCA further asked Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to liaise with the Electricity Company of Ghana, Ghana Water and other service providers to ensure that their data-only SIMs are registered duly.

It also directed the MNOs to configure their systems to facilitate the use of passports for non-resident Ghanaians until December 31, 2022.

“MNOs shall put disconnected SIM Cards in a holding category and current subscribers of these SIM Cards shall be given six (6) months to register their SIM cards, failing which these numbers will be churned by the MNOs.”

The full blocking of SIM cards according to the statement will only begin after September 30.

The window for the re-registration of SIM cards was extended on July 31, but a month after the extension the number of persons who have visited offices of the network service providers to have their SIMs registered dropped by 98 percent.

Data from the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has revealed that as of August 20, 2022, only 5,861 persons had completed the biometric capturing for the re-registration exercise, compared to over 235,000 who had registered as of July 28th, two days before the extension was announced.

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, in an earlier interview with Citi News expressed worry over the low turnout after the extension was announced.

“Apart from the about 250,000 who have attempted to do their SIM registration but is unable to, Ghanaians in the diaspora who the NIA is yet to do the registration for them, and those who haven’t received their Ghana cards, it is important that we find a way of nudging those who have their Ghana cards to go and do the registration.”

He added, “We are working together with the NCA and there are plans are underway to introduce a system where if you have your Ghana card and you haven’t registered, you might not be able to use some services.”