4IMANI Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe is not convinced by the reasons government has given for the SIM re-registration exercise in Ghana.

Government directed Ghanaians to re-register their SIM cards again beginning October 1, 2021, to help curb fraud in the country.

But speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Cudjoe said “the assumption that crime will automatically cease because we are going to register SIM cards is a bit farfetched.”

He felt the directive was also inconveniencing majority of people for very little gain.

“What crimes have the millions of Ghanaians who have legitimately registered their SIM committed to be asked to go and re-register their SIM cards because you want to catch a few fraudsters?” Mr. Cudjoe asked.

In his view, fraudsters are capable of being singled out regardless of this directive for re-registration.

“These fraudsters will be caught anyway, so the reasons are not sound,” he said.

His comments follow similar criticism from the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu.

Mr. Iddrisu also feels the re-registration exercise will not solve the issue of Mobile Money fraud as touted by the government.

He described the government expectations, led by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, as “ill-informed, inept and highly naive.”

The re-registration of mobile SIM cards is expected to last for six months, ending on March 31, 2022.

The exercise is in accordance with the Subscriber Identity Module Registration Regulations, 2011, LI 2006 to curb SIM boxing and other criminal activities.

These are mostly perpetrated by fraudsters using fake SIM cards.

SIM card users will require the National Identification card to be able to register their SIM cards.

Any SIM which is not registered at the end of this exercise will be blocked.