A former Deputy Minister for Communication, George Andah has defended the delay in the re-registration process of SIM cards in the country.

The re-registration window was initially scheduled to begin in January 2020 till June 2020 with the aim of fighting fraud and other related crimes in the country.

However, Mr. Andah explains that for the National SIM re-registration to run successfully, an updated subscriber database which will be derived from the National Identification database was necessary.

“We’ve all heard of people that have experienced the situation where somebody has stolen their SIM card or someone has asked them to send money to them and when you go and check the registration details of the person, you can’t go anywhere. So for SIM registration to be effective, you need to have a subscriber database so that every subscriber can be identified; who they are, where they stay, what they do,” he said.

The National Identification Authority (NIA) ended a mop-up registration of the National Identification Card (Ghana Card) throughout the country in September 2020 after registering 15,549,242 persons.

Speaking on Citi TV’s current affairs show, The Chamber, Mr. Andah said the timing is right to go ahead with the SIM re-registration exercise, as all the necessary requirements are in place.

“It makes sense to make sure that your national ID registration or card issuance process is properly done, and you have one national ID, either a passport or a driver’s license or a national ID card that the customer details have been verified and validated, and that is what is used to support the registration of SIM cards. And I think that is the direction that the ministry is heading,” he added.