The Communication Ministry has announced it will not extend the deadline for the nationwide SIM card registration exercise after July 31, 2022.

According to the Sector Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Ministry and all relevant parties, including the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the telecommunication companies have made a lot of compromises to ensure all Ghanaians register their cards.

“The Ministry continues to monitor the SIM registration process and holds regular meetings with all network operators, service providers and the NCA to devise strategies to facilitate the registration exercise and resolve identified challenges.

“The deadline for the exercise was extended by four months and it will end on the 31st of July, 2022. It will not be extended again – and I take this opportunity to urge everyone who has not yet registered their SIM Card to do,” she said on the floor of Parliament.

At an earlier engagement in the Ahafo Region, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful noted that consequently, all unregistered SIM cards would be deactivated by the end of July.

She, therefore, urged mobile phone users to endeavour to register their cards to stay connected.

She explained that SIM card registration was essential because the exercise would greatly help the country in its efforts to prevent online and cybercrimes that had become more sophisticated.

“There is no way we are going to extend the deadline again,” she stressed.

Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor says there are still genuine reasons why some have not been registered for the Ghana card which is key requirement for the SIM card registration.

“The difficulty on the ground is that, for instance, in South Dayi, it takes somebody 150 Ghana cedis to travel to Peki just to go and queue and get registered when the card is not immediately available – he or she has to come back and return [later for the card].

“Because of this small economic barrier, it’s a disincentive for them to be travelling to the district centre to get registered. Our plea is that the officers who are stationed at the district office for NIA should do zonal registration [but] they don’t want to do that,” he noted.