Minister for Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George, has announced that government will launch a new nationwide SIM registration exercise by the first quarter of 2026.
According to him, the previous registration conducted under former Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful and the former NPP administration is invalid and failed to meet required biometric verification standards.
Speaking in an interview on TV3 on Wednesday, December 3, the Minister said the earlier exercise did not cross-check biometric data with the National Identification Authority’s (NIA) database, making it unreliable.
“The registrations that were purported to have been done by Ursula Owusu and the NPP did not cross-reference the biometrics they took from you against that database. Nothing of that sort was done,” he stated.
Samuel George revealed that the legal framework for the new process is almost complete. He noted that the Legislative Instrument (L.I.) backing the exercise has been drafted and will soon be laid before Parliament.
“The L.I. is ready… First quarter next year, we will roll it out. We are currently at the Public Procurement Authority doing the procurement of the service provider to do the SIM registration,” he said.
He emphasised that the upcoming exercise is not a continuation of the previous one.
“We are not doing a re-registration. We are doing a SIM registration. You didn’t do any registration—the former Minister just wasted everybody’s time,” he remarked.
The Minister added that his ministry has been working closely with the NIA and other agencies to ensure accurate biometric verification and a more efficient system.
“We have worked out the integration between the Telcos, the regulator, NCA, and the NIA,” he said, noting that government is also cleaning up previously collected data.
“All the biometrics they collected were just sitting in databases scattered all over the place. We have picked those databases and are now cleaning them up and cross-referencing them with the NIA. About 80% has been completed,” he added.
