The Minister for Communications, Digital Technology, and Innovation, Samuel Nartey George, has indicated that telecommunications companies will cover the entire cost of the upcoming SIM card registration process in Ghana.
In an interview on The Point of View on Channel One TV on Monday, April 14, Sam George emphasized his commitment to ensuring that telcos take on the financial responsibility for this essential registration, which he views as a key step in modernizing the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.
He shared that plans are underway to introduce a Legislative Instrument (LI) to Parliament to formally establish 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,” George said.
He also compared his approach to the SIM re-registration conducted under former Minister Ursula Owusu, criticizing the process 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.
George explained that his initiative is not a continuation of the previous re-registration efforts but rather a complete SIM registration designed to create a credible and unified database, with the Ghana Card serving as the “single source of truth.”
He also highlighted that the existing SIM registration law, which dates back to 2010 under former Minister Haruna Iddrisu, was enacted before the Ghana Card was 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,” George added.
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