NCA Boss, Joe Anokye
The National Communication Authority (NCA) has announced the deactivation of unregistered active SIMs from June 1st 2023.
According to the Authority, it has about 11 million SIMs which are yet to begin the registration process adding that subscribers of these unregistered active SIMs have up to the end of May 2023, to complete their SIM registration or have their SIMs deactivated from the network.
This includes SIMs owned by subscribers who have the Ghana Cards but have refused to register, subscribers who have registered some but not all of their SIMs and subscribers who do not genuinely have Ghana Cards.
It, however, said that there will be exemptions for Ghanaians on national duties outside Ghana, foreign diplomats and refugees.
“One of the things to note is that active mass SIM registration for existing SIMs is coming to a close. The SIM Registration Exercise will only be for NEW SIMs from the 1st June, 2023,” Director General of the NCA, Joe Anokye said at a press briefing in Accra on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.
He indicated that subscribers who do not genuinely have Ghana Cards will have to prove that they do not have Ghana Cards to prevent their SIMs being deactivated.
Mr. Anokye noted that there were 42,749,709 active SIMs at the inception of the registration exercise in October 1st 2021 adding that some 36,571,257 SIMs are currently active with some 6,178,452 SIMs deactivated so far.
New Code
The NCA Director General also announced a new code subscribers can use to check the number of SIMs linked to their Ghana Cards from May 1st, 2023.
“In the coming days, the Mobile Network Operators will introduce a system to enable subscribers’ check the number and detail of SIMs registered to their respective Ghana Cards,” he said.
He said subscribers can dial the short code *402*1# on all networks to use the system which would allow them to also delink numbers from their Ghana Cards.
He said with the Single Central SIM Register, some 25,488,962 registered SIMs have been linked to 13,982,557 unique Ghana Cards.
Mr. Anokye further debunked claims that the SIM database has been breached stating, “We wish to assure the general public that the SIM Database has not been breached. In the first place, there has been no unauthorised access to the SIM Registration database.
The identified abuses of stage one process, which have been resolved, do not amount to unauthorised access to the SIM Registration database.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri