Telcos to Bear Full Cost of Ghana’s New SIM Registration Exercise – Minister Samuel Nartey George
Ghana’s Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Hon. Samuel Nartey George has announced that telecommunications companies will fully fund the country’s upcoming SIM card registration exercise.
In an interview on Channel One TV on Monday, April 14, 2025, the minister revealed that the new initiative is part of broader efforts to enhance national security, improve data integrity and strengthen the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.
They [telcos] will pay for it. I will make them pay for it, Mr. George stated firmly. There is an LI [Legislative Instrument] that we will be laying before Parliament, he added, indicating that the policy will be backed by legal provisions.
Mr. George clarified that this exercise is a fresh and comprehensive SIM registration—not a continuation or repetition of the re-registration campaign led by former Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful. He was critical of the previous administration’s approach saying it lacked the necessary legal and technical framework to achieve its goals.
That was one of my criticisms of Ursula Owusu—that the re-registration she did… and that is why I have been clear that I am not doing a re-registration. I am doing a SIM registration, he emphasized.
The minister disclosed that the Ghana Card will be the only acceptable form of identification during the registration process. He described it as the single source of truth for identity verification which will ensure accuracy, reduce fraud and centralise the SIM card database across all networks.
This time we want a verifiable, clean system. That’s why the Ghana Card is at the centre. It ensures we have credible data, Mr. George explained.
To provide a legal framework for the process, Mr. George confirmed that a new Legislative Instrument will soon be presented to Parliament. He referenced the last significant legal action on SIM registration, which dates back to 2010 under former Minister Haruna Iddrisu.
The last LI on the record for registration was 2010 by Haruna Iddrisu and don’t forget that registration Haruna did—there was no Ghana Card at the time and so there was no single source of truth, he stated.
While the directive places financial responsibility on telcos, it has been welcomed by some industry analysts who believe that making service providers accountable will encourage better compliance with data regulations. Others, however, are calling for further consultations to ensure that the cost burden does not indirectly affect consumers through service charges.
The date for the rollout of the new SIM registration exercise is expected to be announced after the Legislative Instrument is passed in Parliament.