Republished from The Labari Journal
In 2022, a directive was given by the Ghana Ministry of Communications that all Ghanaians had to re-register their SIM cards biometrically. September 22nd, 2022, was the final deadline given for consumers to comply.
Close to 39 million SIMs were registered at various telecom outlets. About 6 million SIMs were deactivated for failure to register.
However, according to the National Identity Authority (NIA), the institution responsible for citizen data in the country, the biometric information captured during the exercise was never authenticated against its databases.
The revelation was delivered by the NIA’s new director general, Yayra Koku.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he confirmed that biometric data, which was collected during the exercise, was never used to authenticate against the NIA database systems.
Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, in a TV interview, stated that the exercise was “incomplete“.
“I would say it was incomplete. The thing about it is the fact that the biometric data that was collected was not reading properly.”
“What we should have done was use the NIA database to complete the cycle,” Ashigbey added.
Frustrations of Registration
The 2022 mandate, spearheaded by the Ministry of Communications, aimed to link every mobile line to the Ghana Card, Ghana’s biometric ID system, using fingerprints and photos to weed out fraudsters and criminals lurking behind anonymous SIMs.
Telecom operators like MTN Ghana mobilized teams to registration centers, where long queues built up for hours.
The registration was to be done in phases, with consumers required to register their SIM cards via USSD and then have their biometrics captured in person by the telecom companies.
The process was frustrating for most, with long queues and malfunctioning biometric capture devices at various telco centers.
The exercise, which was stated to help combat fraud and cybersecurity, appeared to be ineffective.
In 2023, Ghana’s Cybercrime Unit of the Police Service recorded 7,250 mobile money fraud cases, contributing to an estimated GHS 346 million in total mobile money fraud losses. This was a 32% increase from the previous year.
The Bank of Ghana also reported that mobile money fraud accounted for nearly 2,700 of the 13,451 fraud cases across the entire financial sector.
Another Registration Exercise?
In January, Communications Minister Samuel Nartey George announced a rebooted registration with mandatory NIA syncing/
The Minister stated that the process would be done online and rolled out by June 2025.
He criticised the previous government’s attempt at the SIM registration and said the new system would be less frustrating.
“This new system will put an end to the long queues and delays we experienced in the past. Subscribers will no longer have to physically visit any centre,” he said in a Facebook post.
But in July, the Minister announced that the government would be submitting a fresh Legislative Instrument (L.I.) to Parliament for SIM card re-registration, replacing the outdated 2010 framework.
“The 2010 L.I. is no longer fit for purpose,” George stated at a press briefing. “The National Communications Authority and ministry are finalizing a modernized framework to ensure lawful execution of this exercise.”
There is no new set date for the new re-registration exercise to begin.
