A number of prominent Ghanaian personalities have iterated their call on Ghanaians to boycott phone calls on Tuesday February 8 to register their concerns against the ongoing SIM card registration exercise.

Contained in a statement, the group made up of IMANI President, Franklin Cudjoe, among others explained that there is no law backing the exercise hence the need for it to be stopped.

Prior to this, they had raised this issue in anticipation that the National Communications Authority (NCA) would act on them. However, in its recent statement the group indicated that the NCA had failed to do so hence, the decision to boycott the Mobile Network Operators (MNO).

“Following the failure of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to address concerns associated with the legality and chaotic Sim-Reregistration Exercise, we the undersigned Concerned Mobile Network Subscribers, and the over 7000 online petitioners, call upon our fellow countrymen and women to join our campaign for a #NoCallsDay boycott of the MNOs on Tuesday 8th February 2022”.
Concerned Group

The group noted that on Tuesday, Ghanaians registered on all mobile networks must not try to “make and or receive calls and all associated mobile network activities from 6am to 12midday”.

“The #NoCallsDay boycott on 8th February, would be the first in a series of national boycotts to protest against the illegal and inhumane process of re-registration of SIM cards.”
Concerned Group

Following its boycott, the group revealed that its next line of action after Tuesday 8th February if the concerns raised “remain would be a full day’s boycott on Tuesday 15th February”. The group emphasized that it will subsequently take place every other Tuesday until the appropriate action is taken by the NCA & MNOs.

Concerns raised by the group

Among their concerns, the group intimated that SIM card re-registration exercise is illegal, calling the NCA to immediately withdraw its directive for mobile network customers to re-register their SIM cards by 31st March 2022.

It also revealed that the appropriate legal framework must be in place for any directives for sim re-registration to happen. The group further demanded that the NCA and MNOs should come up with a better and innovative way of re-registering the SIM cards without the current chaotic and inhumane re-registration process citizens are witnessing up and down the country.

The group further expressed in its statement that the NCA should direct the MNOs to stop using private phones of employees to collect subscribers’ biometric data.

Meanwhile, the National Communications Authority (NCA) has announced that it will begin to sanction Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Advertisers, Value-added Service Providers (VASPs) and Content Aggregators for unsolicited electronic communication abuses.

According to the Authority, complaints by Ghanaians over the number of unwanted calls and text messages sent to consumers by the service providers has informed its decision.

In light of this, the Authority has directed mobile network operators, advertisers, value-added service providers and content aggregators to immediately cease all auto and unconsented subscriptions and stop the transmission of all unsolicited messages.

“The Authority further drew the attention of Advertisers/ MNOs, VASPs and Content Aggregators to the fact that failure to adhere to the directive will attract the imposition of the applicable sanctions pursuant to the NCA schedule of penalties”.
NCA