The Deputy Director for Consumer and Corporate Affairs Division at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Mr Kwame Gyan has explained why the Authority has started punitive measures before the deadline of the sim card re-registration which is September 30, 2022.
According to him, although some people have Ghana cards, they are just waiting to see what the NCA will do next.
He also observed that some have their Ghana cards and started the first stage of the registration but complete it after another deadline was given.
The deadline for the sim card re-registration exercise was extended to September 30, 2022, following public outcry.
The deadline for the sim card re-registration should have ended on July 31, 2022, but due to the delay in the issuance of the Ghana card which is linked to the sim card registration exercise, many Ghanaians including Civil Society called for further extension while others proposed the end of 2022 as the deadline.
The Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful who announced this said, “Upon consultation with the industry and in view of the challenges enumerated above, I have very reluctantly decided to grant a conditional extension. The programme will be extended to 30th September to end on the anniversary of its commencement.”
“That will give us one full year of SIM registration. It will be reviewed at the end of this month and any SIM that has not been fully registered by the end of August will be barred from receiving certain services including voice and data services,” she said.
Despite the September 30th extension, on Saturday, 3, 2022, a document released to the Telcos stated that the NCA will start blocking the outgoing calls and data services for 48 hours (2 days) per week of those who have still not re-registered their SIM cards and has done only stage one re-registration.
NCA explained that, “Outgoing calls and Data Services for a sequential batch of numbers blocked for ‘48 hours (2 days) once a week on ‘ rotational basis.”
The NCA also said Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) shall divide the unregistered SIMs into five (5) batches for the purpose of implementing the above punitive measure.
These measures, NCA explained 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,” NCA added.
Read Also: NCA outlines punitive measures against unregistered sim cards
Speaking on Atinka TV‘s morning show, Ghana Nie with Ekourba Gyasi Simpremu, Mr Kwame Gyan said the outlined punitive measures are mostly reminders of what the NCA will do after the deadline.
For those who do not have their Ghana Cards, he said the punitive measures will allow the NCA know “who does not have the Ghanacard and see how best the two can address the challenges”.
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori