The former Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has issued a scathing rebuttal to claims made by President John Dramani Mahama and the current Minister for Communications, Sam George, regarding the status of Ghana’s SIM registration database.
In a statement titled “Rebuttal Statement on SIM Registration Falsehoods,” the former MP for Ablekuma West sought to set the record straight, asserting that the foundations for a credible SIM registry have already been firmly established.
“Incontrovertible facts” on SIM linking
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful challenged the narrative that the previous exercise was ineffective, stating categorically that the 2022-2023 exercise was a “structured and legally compliant process tied to the Ghana Card”.
“Every active SIM card being used today on any mobile network is therefore linked to a Ghana Card, and that is an incontrovertible fact,” she stated. She explained that the process was essential to replace the “ineffective” 2010-2011 exercise, which lacked a proper validation system and relied on manual passport verifications.
Contrary to suggestions by the current administration that the existing data is flawed or “filled with viruses,” Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful pointed to the results of a 2025 audit as proof of the system’s integrity.
“We know that when an audit was conducted in 2025, more than 80% of the facial biometrics captured matched with the data in the NIA database,” she noted. “That means the process was not some useless or empty exercise as they are now desperately trying to suggest. In fact, it shows that the major part of the work has already been done”.
She argued that rather than starting from scratch, the government should simply focus on the remaining 20% who require biometric verification in what she termed “stage 3 of what we started”.
The former Minister also accused the current government of being “dishonest” and “contradictory” for using audit outcomes based on the previous exercise while simultaneously claiming the data has no value. She further alleged that the current administration is merely repeating her methodology—using shortcodes, apps, and biometric registration, while claiming to have “invented something new”.
“If the previous method was so wrong, why are you repeating the same methodology, the same structure, and the same approach?” she questioned.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful concluded by reminding the government that “governance is a continuum” and urged leaders to build on existing progress rather than “erasing it and lying about it for cheap politics”.
She maintained that despite the National Identification Authority (NIA) previously blocking direct database connection for real-time verification, a “comprehensive database” of nearly 30 million SIM cards was successfully compiled and remains securely hosted by NITA.
Read the former Minister’s full statement below:
