SIM cards registration: Ursula warns unregistered merchants

Madam Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister for Communication and Digitalization has warned owners of merchant SIM cards who are yet to re-register their cards to do so to avoid disconnection. The minister was making the remarks during her appearance before Parliament regarding the just-ended SIM cards re-registration exercise.

According to the minister, about “280,000 merchant SIMs have not been registered” adding that “some criminal networks have actually acquired merchant SIMs to facilitate fraudulent activities”. To that end, she said, “…all unregistered merchant SIMs will be blocked permanently at the end of June 2023”.

While disconnecting the unregistered merchant SIMs will be a way of fighting fraud, she nonetheless urged “victims of illegal acts to notify the National Communications Authority (NCA) and action will be taken to deter this process.”

Commenting on complaints that people have had their SIM cards disconnected despite having fully registered, she said the victims should reach out to the NCA for support.

“I have also heard complaints that though they had registered their SIMs, those SIMs were blocked. My information is that several of these complaints are people who didn’t complete the second stage of the process as required. Such people should contact the NCA to have their SIMs registered and owners of the SIMs will get their numbers back after duly registration,” she stated.

Also, she added that people having issues should report to the NCA and get them rectified as early as possible as the NCA would soon permanently block unregistered SIM cards.

“They must act timeously as the NCA will announce when this moratorium will end after which all unregistered SIMs will permanently be blocked from the networks. If your line has been blocked, and you still need it, please go and register. There may be, however, some whose SIMs are blocked inadvertently in full registration. Kindly notify the NCA and a full investigation will be conducted to be determined if this was really the case and why it happened,” she advised.