Ing. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, the Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), has stated that the government’s decision to undertake a new SIM re-registration exercise aims to address issues identified in previous registration processes. His remarks come after the government announced plans for another SIM re-registration across the country.
In an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, March 9, Ing. Fianko clarified that this upcoming exercise will be the third official SIM registration process in Ghana. He explained that the first registration exercise, conducted in 2011, encountered difficulties due to inadequate verification of identification documents.
“This will be the third official registration process. The first one was done in 2011. The challenge with it is that there was no verification at all of the IDs. What we did was a manual verification of some limited cases along the way,” he said. He noted that the second registration exercise was introduced to ensure that subscribers used the national identification card for SIM registration. However, he indicated that the process was not fully completed.
“There was supposed to be verification of the ID card; we did one part of it, but the second part didn’t happen. The policymaker, NIA, couldn’t get alignment to do the second phase, which was the validation of the biometric,” he explained. Ing. Fianko added that irregularities were detected during the process, including instances where fake photos and identities were used to register SIM cards.
He noted that some cases involved fake photographs and instances where different individuals shared the same name. “We observed fake IDs being used for registration,” he explained. He emphasised that the upcoming re-registration exercise is designed to create a trustworthy system that ensures subscriber information can be properly verified.
“Our goal is to establish a single source of truth. We want to confirm that ID details are accurate and that the person presenting the ID is genuinely the rightful holder,” he said. Ing. Fianko further assured the public that Ghanaians will not incur any costs during the new SIM re-registration process.
Source: Leticia Osei
