The National Identification Authority (NIA) has lamented over what it describes as a huge number of printed Ghana Cards in its custody.
According to the Head of Corporate Affairs at the NIA, Abudu Abdul Ganiyu, the Authority has in its possession over 800,000 Ghana Cards yet to be collected by the respective applicants.
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Speaking at a press briefing on Sunday, July 31, 2022 he said the NIA cannot be blamed for the chaos surrounding the sim re-registration.
“We have been able to create two-hundred and ninety-two permanent regional and district offices and that should give opportunity to anyone who is interested in registering for the Ghana card to do so.”
Following the requirement to re-register SIM cards, there has been a push for National ID registration.
The Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful on Sunday, July 31, 2022, during a press briefing, announced an extension of the re-registration deadline to September 30.
The government had initially set July 31 as the deadline for all persons to re-register their SIM cards with their Ghana Cards.
Persons who had failed to comply with the directive would have had their SIM cards deactivated.
The Minister also announced that an app for self-registration will be up by Tuesday, August 2, 2022, which will be made available on both Android and IOS platforms this week. Registration via the app will attract a GH¢ 5 charge.
The sim card re-registration exercise is meant to curb fraudulent and criminal activities, secure SIM Card-based transactions, help determine at every point in time the accurate number of valid and accurate SIMs on the networks, help develop and build a SIM database, among others.