It has been more than a year since the Ministry of Communication, through the National Communication Authority (NCA), directed Ghanaians, and all SIM users to register their sims with the ECOWAS Card; or the Ghana Card.
There have been extensions more than once and it doesn’t seem there will be any extensions again. Therefore, when the news went out that more than 7 millions sims were going to get blocked or disconnected after 31st May, 2023, I was shocked and worried at the same time for this huge number of sims to be blocked. What can be done to help them?
There are some recalcitrant people who have made up their minds that they are not going to re-register their sims even though they have their Ghana cards. Some of these people have taken loans from their service provider and do not intend to pay back. This article is not for such people, they are criminals and they must be prosecuted for their fraudulent acts. There are others who also think they can’t leave their workplaces just to go and register their sims. They would rather buy a new one, anyway.
This is for those who have applied for their Ghana cards and haven’t yet received them. This is for those who have applied for corrections on their cards and haven’t yet received them. In fact, that is the case of my elder brother. His name was wrongly spelt on his card and he has sent it for correction, and he hasn’t yet received it for the past 4 months. He tried using it to register his sims but they refused because of an extra alphabet in his first name. Sigh!
My brother has two sims and for the fear of losing his sims, he has shared the sims with my other brother and I. I was uncomfortable with registering his sim with my name and details. A lot of crazy things happen today and one can really tell who is going to get into trouble uncalled for. I had two concerns when I decided to register his sim under my name.
First it had to do with any criminal offense or activity. There are mobile money issues regarding money laundering and others. Should it happen that my sibling does anything criminal activity with the sim, it is my details that are going to be captured and I will be the one responsible for something I may know nothing about. With this thinking, why won’t the NCA not consider a guarantor system. In this case, my Ghana and my details will be taken to register a sim for another user, the name of the user of the sim and his or her biometric shall be captured until the user has received their Ghana Card to register?
This should stop people from registering sims they will not be using. So in this case when there is any criminal activity on the sim, the details of the user shall be on the system to be traced. And in the case when the user can not be found, the guarantor may be contacted for questioning or assistance.
The second and the last concern had to do with the capturing of the biometric. I was shocked when I was asked to go for a biometric capture after my brother transferred the ownership of his sim to me. (Take a break: I am talking about transfer of ownership of his sim as though my brother was giving me a property – laugh Out loud)
It was shocking to me because I had already done the biometric capture the first time I re- registered my sim last year. That one captured should be enough for all other sims that I registered under my name with the same service provider. It doesn’t make any good sense to be capturing biometric data for every sim card a person purchases.
I think you should be tired at the point with how policies are implemented in this country. Therefore, I will end it here. The re-capturing of biometric data should be once and for all. Or is it the case that the biometric features of people change at some point. I don’t think so unless via accidents.
The guarantor system is one of the ways for NCA and the service providers to get the many to still use their sim cards when there is someone to guarantee for them. Maybe, there could even be a grace period for the guarantor system which could be for 6 months or 12 months maximum. A friend of mine is really worried how his 200Gh has been locked on his MTN momo account because he couldn’t get to register his sim.
For now, we cannot tell whether the number will be left inactive on the system until when he or she has the right documents to re-register his sim. Otherwise there must be a way the service provider can help him withdraw the funds else my friend would be in trouble.
This suggestion may seem may seem far-reaching but would be helpful in the long term. This could be applied for parent who want to have their children use phones when they are above 16 or without a national ID. May we consider this.
By Selasi Aklotsoe Mensah
