By Ashiadey Dotse
The Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Rev. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, says an audit of about two million SIM card records has confirmed that Ghana’s SIM database requires a major clean-up, justifying the ongoing re-registration exercise.
Speaking in an interview on TV3’s Hot Issues programme on Sunday, 22 March 2026, Rev. Fianko explained that the Authority carried out a preliminary assessment to test the credibility of the existing database.
He said the NCA analysed a sample of approximately 2.3 million records, revealing that only 81% matched through facial verification, with no successful matches recorded for biometric verification.
According to him, although the sample size was relatively small compared to the total number of SIM registrations, the findings exposed significant gaps in identity verification.
“We took a small sample to determine whether to proceed or not, and the results clearly showed there were problems with the database,” he said.
Rev. Fianko added that while the findings may not fully represent the entire database, they were significant enough to warrant urgent action.
He stressed that the discrepancies identified underscored the need to clean up the database, which informed the decision to implement the SIM re-registration exercise.
The NCA boss maintained that the exercise is critical to improving the integrity of the country’s telecommunications system, enhancing national security and reducing identity-related fraud.
