Samuel Nartey George, Minister for Communications, Digital Technology, and Innovation, has firmly stated that telecommunications companies will be responsible for the full cost of the upcoming SIM card registration exercise in Ghana.
Speaking during an appearance on The Point of View on Channel One TV on Monday, April 14, Sam George emphasized his commitment to making telcos bear the financial burden of the process, which he described as crucial to enhancing Ghana’s telecommunications infrastructure.
He revealed that preparations are in place to present a Legislative Instrument (LI) to Parliament to give legal backing to this directive. “They [telcos] will pay for it. I will make them pay for it. There is an LI that we will be laying before Parliament,” he affirmed.
George distinguished his approach from previous efforts led by former Minister Ursula Owusu, criticizing the re-registration exercise conducted during her tenure. “That was one of my criticisms of Ursula Owusu—that the re-registration she did… and that is why I have been clear that I am not doing a re-registration. I am doing a SIM registration,” he clarified.
He noted that his initiative is a fresh and thorough registration process, aimed at creating a reliable and centralized database, anchored on the Ghana Card as the sole point of reference.
Highlighting the outdated nature of the existing legal framework, George pointed out that the last Legislative Instrument for SIM registration was enacted in 2010 during the leadership of then-Minister Haruna Iddrisu—a time when the Ghana Card was not yet introduced.
“The last LI on the record for registration was 2010 by Haruna Iddrisu and don’t forget that registration Haruna did—there was no Ghana Card at the time and so there was no single source of truth,” he stated.
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