National SIM Card Re-registration exercise in October

 

The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation will launch the National SIM Card Registration Exercise across the country next month.

Existing subscribers will register their SIMs via USSD and a sim registration App.

Government will be implementing handset and equipment registration alongside the SIM registration and set up the CEIR as stated in the Executive Instrument 63.

The Central Equipment Identity Register connects to MNOs’ systems in a non-intrusive manner in order to aggregate all IMEIs coming from all the local operators in a single national IMEI database.

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.

In the case of foreigners staying in Ghana for less than 90 days, a valid passport or other travel document is required.

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 Regulator, NCA, will also get more accurate data to regulate the industry even better.

Individuals can register a total number of 10 SIM Cards across all networks and Foreigners will have a limit of 3 SIM Cards across all networks. Let me caution here, that people should not think that they can hide behind Businesses and register as many SIM Cards as they want.

All SIM Cards registered to a Business will be linked to a Shareholder or Director of the Business and if a Business SIM Card is found to have been engaged in a fraudulent activity, the Shareholder or Director will be held liable.

The minimum age for SIM registration has been set at 15 years, taking into consideration the increased use of communications services since the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic and  to facilitate E-education.

Barring any unforeseen eventualities, SIM Registration will begin on 1st October, 2021 for a six (6) month period and end on 31st March, 2022.

Any sim which is not registered at the end of this exercise will be blocked.

The NIA is opening Regional and District Offices to enable Ghanaians who have not registered for their Ghana Card to be able to do so and we encourage all Ghanaians and Foreigners resident in Ghana to ensure that they have their Ghana Cards and Non-Citizen Ghana Card ready. 

In addition, those who have registered but have not picked up their Ghana Cards should be able to do so from the various NIA offices.