By Vanessa Adjei
With about two months to the deadline for SIM re-registration in Ghana, hundreds of people have thronged the Customer Service Centers of the Telecommunication Companies to comply with the directive.
The registration which commenced on October 1, 2021, was met with mixed reactions among Ghanaians. Upon a visit to the various Telcos Centers, GBC News observed that there were long queues, with some people having a total disregard for all Covid-19 protocols.
It was quite a sight to see when the news team arrived at the Vodafone retail shop at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.
People in long queues in about a 100 meter space waiting their turn to register their SIM and also do their biometric. With the little observation made, long queues had resulted in the complete disregard for the Covid-19 Protocols.
There were about five Officers designated to do the registration.
Most of the people who spoke on anonymity said the delay was due to the fact that people come there to link their cards before doing the registration instead of doing it at home and just coming in to have their biometrics captured.
The news team on the backdrop of that information sought to find out from Officials of the Vodafone network, but they refused to speak to the issue.
At another stop at the MTN Head Office and retail shop at Roman Ridge, it was the same story as we saw long queues and total disregard of the protocols.
Officials there declined to talk.
There, a Security man who worked closer to the Center spoke on a hidden identity.
He said sometimes at 2am, he sees people come into the Center to queue for the registration.
He said that it is worrying especially when they come at that time and still don’t get the chance to register due to network problems.
As at the time the team got there, the network was down and so registrants were asked to go home and return on Monday, January 10, 2022.
Against this backdrop, some Ghanaians have taken to social media to demand an extension of the March 31, 2022 deadline for re-registration of SIM Cards in Ghana. Also, they called on the telcos and HCA to devise new ways such as doing a door–to–door registration so that the centers would be free.