Chief Executive Officer of telecoms giant, MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, has expressed concern over the nonchalance of most Ghanaians to re-register their SIM cards.
According to him, MTN is determined to execute its Ambition 2025 strategy barring the challenging business environment it faces. He assured that his outfit is intensifying efforts to encourage subscribers who have not re-registered their SIM cards to do so by close of day.
“We are very concerned. As a business, 9 million SIMs, in the industry, is a large number of SIMs. We continue to work with customers and intensify our activities in the field to get people to register. The main concern is the apathy and lack of responsiveness of customers despite a lot of efforts to get people to come and register. We saw a lot of our service centres and stores quite busy with a lot of queues. The question is why does it take the last few days before people respond?”
Selorm Adadevoh
Mr Adadevoh iterated that as a business, MTN is resolute in its mission to support customers register their SIM card. He emphasized that his outfit equally understands and support the national SIM re-registration programme.
“We have put a lot of resources behind the team to ensure that we get everyone registered to the extent possible. But we need customers to do their part. If you have not registered your SIM, please go to one of our service centres and partners and do that.”
Selorm Adadevoh
Furthermore, Mr Adadevoh outlined measures the company has put in place for MoMo account holders who cannot meet the deadline. He noted that a customer’s SIM will be delinked and deactivated, however, for those with money on their SIM, MTN has a provision in the Payment System and Services Act (PSSA), on how to treat funds that have not been accessed.
“Essentially, they will be treated as dormant funds, and you can redeem them at any point in time through the right processes and identification. All of these will be an advice for customers at the end of the exercise.”
Selorm Adadevoh
The MTN CEO’s comments comes as all unregistered SIM cards will be deactivated by telecommunication companies today, May 31.
NIA registers 17 million Ghanaians
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Professor Ken Attafuah, has disclosed that the Authority has successfully registered more than 17 million Ghanaians, with a projected target of capturing an additional 2 million within the next three months, pending the release of funds for its operations.
Speaking to the media amidst a sense of urgency among citizens keen to obtain their Ghana cards, Prof Attafuah emphasized that once sufficient funding is provided, the Authority is determined to complete the registration process for all Ghanaians aged 15 and above within a maximum of three months.
“As soon as payments are made, blank cards are available to serve us. We have less than 2 million people aged 15 and above to serve. We have already registered 17,421,454 Ghanaians and captured them onto the National Identity Register. According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the population aged 15 and above out of the 31 million is just about 19.9 million, and out of this, we have already captured 17.421 million. So, the population that remains to be captured aged 15 and above is relatively small, and we have the capacity to capture the remaining 2 million within a maximum of three months.”
Professor Ken Attafuah
Today, May 31, 2023, all active and unregistered SIM cards are to be deactivated and removed following a directive from the National Communications Authority (NCA).
READ ALSO: NPP Approves Timelines For Assin North By-Election
