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The Minister of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George, has announced that the government will launch a fresh nationwide SIM registration exercise in the first quarter of 2026, declaring the previous registration under former Communications Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful as technically and legally defective.
Speaking in an interview on TV3’s New Day on Wednesday, December 3, Mr George said the earlier exercise carried out during the NPP administration failed to properly validate subscriber identity, particularly because the biometric data collected from citizens was never cross-checked against the National Identification Authority (NIA) database, a fundamental requirement for accurate authentication.
“The registrations that were purported to have been done by Ursula Owusu and the NPP did not cross-reference the biometric they took from you against that database. Nothing of that sort was done,” Samuel Nartey George, Minister of Communications
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The Minister disclosed that a new Legislative Instrument (L.I.) to regulate the upcoming SIM registration has been completed and will soon be laid before Parliament.
He stressed that the upcoming process will be grounded in law, unlike the previous one, which he insists lacked the proper legal basis.
“The L.I. is ready… First quarter next year, we will run it out. We are currently at the Public Procurement Authority doing the procurement of the service provider to do the SIM registration,” he noted.
Mr George was emphatic that the government is not continuing the old exercise. Instead, it is starting a proper SIM registration from scratch.
“We are not doing a re-registration. We are doing a SIM registration. You didn’t do any registration; the former minister just wasted everybody’s time.”
The minister revealed that his ministry has now reached a full agreement with the NIA to integrate biometric systems, allowing seamless real-time verification during the registration process.
“We have worked out the integration between the telco, the regulator, NCA and the NIA,” he said.
Mr George further revealed that the ministry has already begun sanitising biometric information previously gathered by telcos.
“All the biometrics they collected were just sitting in databases scattered all over the place. We have picked those databases, and we are now cleaning them and cross-referencing them with the NIA. About 80 percent of it has been done.”
Background
The SIM registration exercise conducted between 2021 and 2023 under Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was marked by long queues, mass deactivations, and public frustration. Although the ministry insisted the process was meant to fight fraud, critics argued that the process lacked adequate legal backing and biometric integrity.
The new exercise planned for 2026 aims to resolve these gaps by ensuring full biometric verification, legal clarity, and integration across agencies.
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