Why Ghana is rolling out new SIM re-registration – NCA Boss shares key details (Video)

The Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, says Ghana’s planned nationwide SIM re-registration exercise is intended to correct irregularities discovered during previous registration efforts and build a more credible national subscriber database.

His remarks follow a recent government announcement indicating that a new SIM re-registration process will soon be rolled out across the country.

Speaking in an interview with Channel One TV on Monday, 9 March, Ing. Fianko explained that the upcoming exercise will be Ghana’s third official SIM registration process, noting that earlier exercises faced significant verification challenges.

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“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.

According to him, the second exercise attempted to strengthen the process by requiring subscribers to register their SIM cards using the Ghana Card issued by the National Identification Authority (NIA). However, he said the exercise was never fully completed because the planned biometric verification stage was not implemented.

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“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.

The NCA boss disclosed that investigations during the previous registration exercise uncovered several irregularities, including instances where individuals used false photographs or identification documents to register SIM cards.

“There are cases, including fake photos, where the same name is used by a different person. We saw fake IDs used to register,” he said.

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Ing. Fianko stressed that the new re-registration exercise is aimed at establishing a reliable system where subscriber identities can be properly verified against a trusted national database.

“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 added.

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He further assured the public that the upcoming SIM re-registration exercise will not attract any charges for subscribers.

The move forms part of broader efforts by the government and telecommunications regulators to strengthen SIM registration processes, improve national security and ensure accurate identification of mobile phone users.