Subscribers to various telecommunication networks are calling on the government to extend the deadline for the re-registration of the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards.
The March 31, 2022deadline by the government to end the SIM re-registration they said, was not feasible as they always met long queues and interrupted slow networks at these re-registration centres.
They have, therefore, indicated that the introduction of swifter measures to help ease the congestions and make the process faster would do more good than harm.
Checks by the Ghanaian Times showed that subscribers were still frustrated by the process particularly because of the vast number of people at these centres.
In an interview in Accra yesterday, they complained that the process was just time wasting as it could have been done on one’s mobile phone without having to come to the service centres.
At the MTN Service Centre, Madina Zongo Junction, Papa Nii said he had been there the previous week without going through due to the crowd at the place.
“I want the government to initiate an innovate system as quickly as possible to ease the problem we are going through.
“Some of us have to seek permission from work for one or two days but at the end you still have not reregistered.”
At the Vodafone Service Centre at Circle, a food vendor, Maadwoa Offei stated that the entire populace would never be able to re-register their SIM cards within the six months period.
Ms Offei said it was therefore important for the deadline to be extended, adding that “the whole process should have been completed on one’s phone and not at the centre. This will even make it simpler and faster.”
Aku Sika at the Darkuman branch of the MTN Service Centre similarly reiterated the need for an extension adding that “this is highly unnecessary and it feels like we are always going back to the old things over and over again as a country.”
Frank Adusei, also a subscriber at the MTN Service Centre at the West Hills Mall who vehemently rejected the process said the energy and time invested in the exercise could have been used in something more profiting for the country.
Meanwhile, theNational Communication Authority (NCA) said it was working with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and the developer of the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card registration application, to ease human congestion that has characterised the ongoing exercise.
The measures include the deployment of additional registration points across the country, to facilitate the process and development and implementation of daily quota and ticketing system for SIM registration bio-capture at the customer care centres.
A statement issued by the NCA last Thursday, acknowledged the frustration and inconvenience of customers in their bid to complete the second stage of the SIM card registration process.
The Ghanaian Times last Thursday reported that hundreds of people continued to be in long queues at the various telecommunication centres in Accra to have their SIM cards registered.
This comes after the government’s directive for all SIM cards to be reregistered within a period of six months (from October, 2021 to March 31, 2022) using the Ghana card.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR AND ANITA ANKRAH
