SOURCE: CITINEWS
Barely a month after government announced another extension of the deadline for the SIM card re-registration exercise, the number of persons who have visited offices of the network service providers to have their SIMs registered has dropped by a whopping 98 percent.
Data from the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has revealed that as of August 20, 2022, only five thousand eight hundred and sixty-one (5,861) persons had completed the biometric capturing for the re-registration exercise, compared to over two hundred and thirty-five thousand (235,000) who had registered as of July 28th, two days before the extension was announced.
Even though the Communication Minister had vowed not to extend the deadline again, she announced a new extension to end the anniversary of its commencement, which will give us a full year.
In addition to this, there was still the genuine concern of many citizens who still hadn’t received the Ghana cards to partake in the registration exercise.
However, it is observed that many who have the Ghana cards choose to wait for the last minute before rushing to the various network companies to re-register their cards. The figures from the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications proves this.
As of July 28, two days to the initial deadline, two hundred and thirty-five, four sixty 235, 460 persons had completed the biometric capturing process of the re-registration exercise.
On the day of the deadline (July 31), before the new extension was announced, the number stood at one hundred fifty-three thousand, eight hundred fourteen 153,814.
The day after the announcement saw the numbers reduce drastically by 64 percent to 83,854, and recorded a continuous decline in the remaining weeks.
Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, tells Citi News, measures must be put in place to compel people to make use of the time before the deadline rather than rushing to the telcos at the eleventh hour.
