Ing. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), has said the government’s decision to undertake a new SIM re-registration exercise is aimed at correcting anomalies identified in previous registration processes.
His comments follow a recent announcement by the government indicating plans to roll out another SIM re-registration exercise across the country.
Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, March 9, Ing. Fianko explained that the upcoming exercise will be the third official SIM registration process in Ghana.
According to him, the first registration exercise conducted in 2011 faced challenges because there was no proper 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.
“There are cases including fake photos, the same name but a different person. We saw fake IDs used to register,” he said.
He stressed that the new re-registration exercise aims to establish a reliable system where subscriber information can be accurately verified.
“What we want to do is to have a single source of truth. We want to ensure the ID details are correct and that the person who brought the ID is indeed the person,” he said.
Ing. Fianko further assured that Ghanaians will not bear the cost of the upcoming SIM re-registration exercise.