The Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, has said the government’s decision to conduct a new SIM re-registration exercise is intended to correct irregularities identified in previous registration processes.

His remarks follow a recent government announcement indicating plans to undertake another nationwide SIM re-registration exercise.

Speaking in an interview with Channel One TV on Monday, March 9, Mr. Fianko explained that the upcoming exercise will mark the third official SIM registration process in Ghana.

According to him, the first registration exercise conducted in 2011 faced major challenges due to the absence of proper verification of identification documents.

“The first one was done in 2011. The challenge with it was that there was no verification at all of the IDs.

What we did was manual verification of some limited cases along the way,” he said.

He noted that the second registration exercise was introduced to ensure that subscribers registered their SIM cards using the National Identification Authority (NIA) card.

However, he explained that the process was not fully completed because the biometric validation stage was not implemented.

“There was supposed to be verification of the ID card; we did one part of it, but the second part didn’t happen.

The policymaker, the NIA, couldn’t get alignment to do the second phase, which was the validation of the biometrics,” he stated.

Mr. Fianko further revealed that the previous exercise uncovered several irregularities, including cases where fake photographs and identities were used to register SIM cards.

“There are cases, including fake photos and the same name but a different person.

We saw fake IDs used to register,” he added.

According to the NCA Director-General, the upcoming re-registration exercise is aimed at creating a more reliable and verifiable database of mobile subscribers.

“What we want to do is to have a single source of truth. We want to ensure the ID details are correct and that the person who brought the ID is indeed the person,” he said.

He also assured the public that the new SIM re-registration exercise will be carried out at no cost to subscribers.