Sam George, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo-Prampram in the Greater Accra Region, has welcomed the decision by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation to extend the deadline for the nationwide Subscriber Identity Model (SIM) card re-registration, to July 31, 2022.
He stated that the extension was in order as it responded to calls made by the Minority earlier and the first part of the problem solved and the right thing had been done with an extension given.
However, Mr George hinted that the Minority would now move on to advocate review of source documents which could allow individuals to re-register their SIM cards adding that “as Ranking Member on Parliament’s Communication Committee the decision by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, to allow only the use of the Ghana Card for the exercise, contravened the law.
“The only applicable legislation which permits citizens to use other cards for registering their SIM card has been ignored and will champion cause for other cards to be used for the re-registration exercise,” Mr George noted.
According to him, there was only one legislation in the country for registration of SIM cards, Legislative Instrument (LI) 2006, Section 10, stipulated the cards that could be use to register SIM card which included passport and Voter’s ID card stated in a law passed by Parliament.
He indicated that the law had not been changed, and was the only law for registration of SIM cards by the ministry and the law backing the registration was LI 2111 for the National Identification Authority enabling it to be able to generate Ghana card and Section 7 of LI 2111 made the card mandatory for a number of public services.
“Making something mandatory does not make it unitary and does not mean because they say you must use this card, it becomes the only card but it only means you must use it with any other card and the law is specific on action you want to take,” Mr George said. –myjoyonline.com
