Why only Ghana Card for SIM card registration? – Sam George asks Ursula Owusu

The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Communication Committee, Sam Nartey George, has berated Communication and Digitalisation Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, for the decision to use the Ghana Card as the only document needed to register SIM cards.

Sam George said that the decision is a violation of the country’s laws on SIM Card registrations and an affront to the 1992

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“LI. 2006 says that 'a network operator or service provider shall register a subscriber identity module (SIM) of a subscriber.' It goes on to say what the registrants must provide to the network operator.

"These are 'the date of birth, in the case of an individual, the date of incorporation in the case of a body corporate or company, the date of registration in the case of a partnership on unincorporated bodies of persons and see an identification document.'

“This is what the law says. Now the law does not end there. The law goes on in section 10 of the LI which is the interpretation section to define, explain and interpret what the legislation means by identification document.

"Section 10 of LI. 2006 reads 'in this regulations unless the context otherwise requires identification document for a citizen includes: a valid driver's license, a valid national health insurance identification card, a valid passport, a valid voters identification card, a valid national identity card or any other valid form of identification document',” he said

Sam George, who is the Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, suggested that the decision to use only the Ghana Card is the main reason a lot of Ghanaians have not registered their SIM cards yet and will not be able to before the July 31 deadline set by the minister.

He said that because of the many challenges confronting the Ghana Card registration exercise, a lot of Ghanaians have not been to acquire the card which means that they cannot register their SIM cards.

“How does a citizen go to the NIA office and is given a date for the end of August (for collection of his or her Ghana Card), comply with this obnoxious, capricious, malicious, whimsical and unrighteous directive from the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation?” he questioned.



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