The National Communications Authority (NCA) has stated that over 11 million unregistered SIM cards will be deactivated on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
Addressing the press in Accra, the Director General of the NCA, Joe Anokye said the data safety of Mobile subscribers within the Central SIM registration database is intact.
According to him, “One of the things to note is that active mass SIM registration for existing SIMs is coming to a close, and as mentioned earlier, we have about 11 million SIMs which are yet to begin the registration process, these subscribers have up to the end of May 2023 to complete their SIM registration or have their SIMs deactivated from the network.”
He cited telecommunication service MTN which had been identified as a Significant Market Player breached regulations.
He stated: “MTN should not charge lower for voice, SMS, and data. MTN should not charge off-net calls. MTN has so far been in compliance with the directive. However, in January 2023, the NCA took notice of the MTN data zone bundle, the 24-hour data bundle for the various data allocations.
“Some market players raised concerns, and NCA engaged MTN and reviewed the product. We realized that the MTN data bundle was the lowest on the market and in violation of the directive. It was directed to discontinue the service.”
Earlier, all unregistered SIM cards were deleted from the database of telecommunication operators.
The services to be blocked are; voice, data (Mobile, phones, MIFIS, and other data-providing devices), SMS (incoming and outgoing) USSD, mobile money services, and emergency services.
As of February this year, a total of 25,150,522 million SIM cards have been fully registered as of February 9, 2023, in accordance with the SIM registration directives and the process, which commenced on October 1, 2021.
The over 25 million figure represents 33,793,132 total SIM cards issued by mobile network operators (MNO).
