Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa, has launched a scathing attack on the government’s recently announced 2026 mass SIM card re-registration exercise, branding the recurring policy as a textbook example of “Katanomics” – his theory that national projects are driven by procurement motives disguised as political necessity.
Triggered by the announcement that a fresh nationwide SIM registration exercise is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2026, Simons demanded immediate transparency from the Minister of Communications, Digital Technology, and Innovations, Hon. Samuel Nartey George, regarding serious, unconfirmed allegations – that the contract is being sole-sourced to an inexperienced company with close political ties.
“I am getting messages to the effect that my questions about the proposed SIM card re-registration are a bit cynical – that we shouldn’t be ‘naysayers’ all the time, and that we should give elected officials in Ghana the benefit of the doubt – that I’m jumping the gun on raising procurement issues as the Minister just initiated the program”
Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa
The IMANI Vice President argued that the repeated failure of previous SIM registration attempts since 2010 proves that the state’s approach to policy design is fundamentally broken. He outlined a history of chronic, expensive failure surrounding SIM card integrity, which he believes demonstrates that Ghana’s governance structures are designed “never to learn.”
“How can a country continue to repeatedly fail at something and yet each new round is driven by politicians without the slightest hint of shame or sense of accountability? What if I told you that previous mass registrations have never been driven by policy?”
Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa
He recalled that a mass registration was first done in 2010. By 2014, the country was informed that the first exercise had failed, necessitating a second round. By 2021, a third re-registration exercise was launched, only for Ghanaians to now be convinced, yet again in 2025, that chronic failure is “normal” and that a new, expensive mass registration is required to fix the persistent mess.
The policy analyst posited that the root of this perpetual failure is not technical, but rather financial and political. The exercises, he claims, are not driven by genuine, robust policy design but by external financial interests – the core tenet of his Katanomics theory.
Sole-Sourcing Allegations and Transactly
Simons moved from theoretical critique to concrete allegations, stating his frustration is based on disturbing information regarding the procurement process for the 2026 exercise. He demanded the Minister address serious claims that the Ministry has already authorized the sole-sourcing of the highly sensitive project.
Simons named the company allegedly set to receive the contract as Transactly, describing it as a “mushroom company set up in 2022.” He asserted that the company is run by individuals with proximity to political power and has never deployed a national critical-mission project of this scale, security, and privacy sensitivity.
The analyst noted that the secrecy surrounding the procurement process reinforces his Katanomics suspicion. “They sell a vision of ‘what’ they want to do… but they never engage on the ‘how’,” Bright Simons further lamented.
He added that information suggests some officials at the National Communications Authority (NCA) are opposed to the deal and that a trial system demoed by Transactly failed a major telco’s assessment.
Demand for Transparency
In light of the potential sole-sourcing scandal and the history of failure, Simons issued a direct demand for accountability from the Ministry.
“Is the upcoming 2026 mass registration also driven by procurement? The Minister must tell us,” he said, requesting a detailed public report on both the procurement process and the technical architecture of the proposed solution, especially as the project is to ensure that only 20% of those whose previous registration appears defective go through the process.
He particularly challenged the Ministry to explain exactly how the new system will be resistant to fraud, given that the underlying Ghana Card platform itself is not entirely fraud-proof due to the country’s stage of civic development and planning.
The IMANI Vice President concluded that the secrecy and lack of critical policy consultation surrounding the SIM re-registration suggest that the project is merely an “ego-policy” – a clique project – rather than true “public policy.”
“If this was really public policy driven, there would be no sole-sourced contract. You know why? Because the telcos would have done it at their own cost and connected to a dashboard at NCA developed under NITA supervision.
“There would be no need to sweep private data to any mushroom contractor. An open-source framework developed by the tech community would guide the technical architecture – at no cost to the government”
Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa
The refusal of Ghanaian elites to press for a national debate on this “bizarre affair,” Simons asserted, provides the answer: it is driven by Katanomics.
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