Ranking Member of Parliament’s Committee on Communication, Samuel Nartey George, says he has been vindicated by reports emerging from the SIM re-registration exercise.
The MP says though he does not take delight in telling the government “I told you so”, the fraudulence emerging from the SIM re-registration could have been averted if his words had been taken with some seriousness.
There have been reports of registration of SIM cards with people’s Ghana card without their knowledge.
Their bio-data have fraudulently been taken by others to register the SIMs and sold out to other people.
Meanwhile, the MP in September 2022, warned that the objective of the SIM re-registration exercise will not be realised if the approach adopted by the Communication and Digitalisation Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was not changed.
He had revealed that pre-registered SIM cards were being sold on the market.
The MP had noted the inundation of the pre-registered SIM was evident that the work which was being done was not fit for purpose.
“As we speak today, there are SIM cards that have been registered, out of the 21 million that have completed stage one and stage two. Some of those SIM cards have been registered by other people’s Ghana Card fictitiously. And as we speak today, there are pre-registered SIM cards registered with Ghana Card on the market. So what is the Minister solving?” he said on Accra-based Joy FM in September 2022 in reaction to the Communication and Digitalisation minister’s claim of eradicating SIM fraud with the re-registration.
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About eight months down the lane, the NIA is now battling with the fraud of people’s bio-data being used to register SIM cards that do not belong to them.
Speaking with Alfred Ocansey Tuesday, April 11, 2023, on Ghana Tonight, Mr. George said the National Communication Authority’s approach to resolve the issue with an app or short code will not suffice.
Rather than resolving the challenge with a technical eye, the NCA is rather doing politics with the SIM registration.
“It is such irresponsibility from the regulator because we warned that this will happen and I’m not excited to say I told you so because this is personal data of the citizen because when you have a regulator who is failing to look at the technicalities and rather playing to the political gallery, it shouldn’t surprise you that he is speaking from the place of very little understanding of the situation. We have a critical problem on our hand. An app will not solve data theft. Proper regulators across the world take breach of personal data very seriously.”
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By Felix Anim-Appau|Onuaonline.com
