The strategy is taken by the Ministry of Communications in Ghana. Card and SIM card registration procedures have been dubbed “shambolic” by Sam Nartey George, the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram.
Sam George described the entire procedure as a “mess,” and he insisted that Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the minister of communications, be held accountable for the difficulties that the Ghanaian government and its citizens are currently facing.
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful extended the deadline for the SIM card re-registration till Sunday, July 31, 2022, and in response, the ranking member of the parliamentary select committee on communications criticized the communications ministry of imposing unrealistic registration deadlines.
“Ursula Owusu assigns blame for the confusion surrounding registration to everyone save herself.
“The deadlines she has given are impractical and poised to fail even before commencement. We are uncertain the robustness of the paid-for app she says would launch 2 days after her deadline has lapsed.
“This is a tragic comedy of poor policy decisions, shambolic implementation plans, and a clueless approach to technology rollout.
“Her shambolic public policy implementation would be studied in lecture rooms across the world as how not to implement a public policy,” he shared on social media.
Touching on the directive by the Communications Minister for Ghanaians in the diaspora to use their passports as the document for registration, Sam George wondered why the same government that rejected the use of the passports by Ghanaian residents would accept the same for residents outside Ghana.
“Again, we see incoherence in her directive to Ghanaians in the diaspora to use their Passports. The same passports she is refusing for us to use within the jurisdiction,” he said.
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said on Sunday that the re-registration would now last until September 30, 2022.
She revealed that Ghanaians could now register their sims from the comfort of their homes via an app that would be released in the coming days. But the Ghanaian will have to pay GHC5.00 for the procedure.
“Upon consultation, the Government has decided to grant a final conditional extension.” The program will be extended to September 30 to end on the anniversary of its commencement, which will give us one full year of SIM re-registration,” the minister stated.
“It will be reviewed at the end of this month [July] and any SIM that has not been fully registered by the end of August will be barred from certain services including voice and data. It will also be more expensive to use unregistered SIMs,” she added
