Unregistered SIM cards to be blocked by October 31 – Ursula Owusu

Persons who have linked their Ghana Cards to their SIM Cards but have not proceeded to fully reregister their SIM will lose data and voice services at the end of this month if they fail to complete the process.

Those who have not begun the process at all will have their unregistered SIM cards ‘progressively’ blocked as well.

This is according to the Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.

In a statement sighted by GhanaWeb, the sector minister clarified that the grace period granted to persons who have linked their Ghana Card to their SIM in the reregistration process was not an extension of the September 30 deadline but a moratorium to serve as encouragement for them to with the registration.

“All SIM Cards that have been linked to Ghana Cards (i.e. completed Stage 1 registration), but have not completed their Stage 2 registration will be blocked from the end of October.

“This is not an extension of the deadline but a temporary moratorium to encourage these individuals to complete the process. If they have any peculiar challenges, they should contact the NCA.

“These good people have the Ghana card, have started the process and will be encouraged to complete it with this gentle reminder. All other unregistered SIMs will also be blocked progressively,” part of the statement read.

Ursula Owusu-Ekuful further cautioned persons who have used their Ghana Card to register more than the 10 SIMs allowed threshold.

She advised that such persons who have exceeded the threshold delink the excess numbers warning that the system will identify and block it if they do not do so.

She also admonished SIM card vendors against selling pre-registered SIMs stating they could spend 5 years in prison if found guilty of the act.

On data-only SIMs, the minister added that they have till the end of November 30 to complete the reregistration exercise.

“All data-only SIMs including those issued by Surfline, Busy Internet, Telesol, and any institution such as ECG, have up to the end of November to complete registration.

“Some people have registered more than ten (10) SIM Cards for personal use and the database has identified it and will clean it up. They should, as a matter of urgency, delink the unwanted SIM Cards immediately because any excess SIM Cards over the individual limit of 10 SIMs per person will be removed from the database and blocked.

“This will also address issues of pre-registered SIMS. Let me remind all SIM card vendors that it is an offence to pre-register and sell SIM cards. The NCA has been directed to conduct mystery shopping and enforce the law against those miscreants. If found guilty, they could be imprisoned for up to 5 years,” the statement continued.

According to data put out by the minister, a total of 18,930,664 SIM Cards have been fully registered while 28,959,006 SIM Cards have been linked to Ghana Cards – representing 67.28% of the 42,749,662 total SIM cards issued nationally.

This is between 1st October 2021 and 4th October 2022.