Ghana’s government is set to launch a fresh nationwide SIM registration exercise by the first quarter of 2026, according to the Minister for Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George.
The Minister asserted that the previous registration effort, conducted under the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration and led by former Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, was invalid and amounted to a “waste of everybody’s time.”
Why the Relaunch?
George’s core argument against the previous exercise is a lack of proper biometric verification.
“The registrations that were purported to have been done by Ursula Owusu and the NPP did not cross-reference the biometrics they took from you against that database. Nothing of that sort was done.”
He stressed that the new process is not a re-registration but a completely new SIM registration, claiming the public “didn’t do any registration” the first time.
The Legal and Technical Path Forward
The Minister stated the necessary framework is nearing completion:
- Legal Basis: A new Legislative Instrument (L.I.) is “ready” and will be laid before Parliament to ensure a “proper legal basis” for the exercise.
- Procurement: The government is currently engaging the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) to select a service provider for the registration.
- Integration: The Ministry has been working with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to secure a reliable system for biometric verification, integrating the Telcos, the regulator (NCA), and the NIA’s database. “We have worked out the integration,” he said.
Data Cleanup Underway
Addressing the data collected during the previous attempt, George noted that the government is actively cleaning up and validating the existing records.
“All the biometrics they (NPP) collected it was just sitting in databases scattered all over the place. We have picked those databases, and we are now cleaning them up and cross referencing them with the NIA in the backend. About 80% of them have been done.”
The Minister made these comments during an interview on TV3 on Wednesday, December 3.
What’s Next: The government will proceed with the procurement process and expects to lay the new L.I. before Parliament soon, aiming for a rollout in the first three months of 2026.
