RESIDENTS REGISTER SIM CARDS (PAGE 61, JULY 5, 2010, DG)

MANY residents in Tamale are on a daily basis rushing to the offices of their telecommunications service providers to register their SIM cards.
The Ministry of Communications had indicated that by the end of July next year, all SIMs that were unregistered would be collapsed and that all new SIMs would have to be registered before usage.
At the offices of TIGO, MTN, ZAIN and KASAPA, many customers queued to get their SIMs registered, even though the deadline was still several months ahead.
Details taken by the providers included the owner’s name, residential address, voter I.D. card data and other relevant data.
Officials at Vodafone said the company would commence its registration exercise next week.
Some of the officials at the four telecommunications companies that had started the registration told the Daily Graphic that the exercise had already been ongoing even prior to the Communication Ministry’s directive.
“As for us, we always encourage our customers to come and register their SIMs, especially when they buy it from street vendors,” one of them noted.
The officials said it was surprising that for once, Ghanaians had responded to a directive in time.
“It appears some people took it for granted, until recently when they realised that the Communication’s Ministry meant serious business,” one of the officials stated.
“This makes the exercise more difficult, because we have to spend a significant chunk of our time to ensure that all our customers have their SIMs registered before the deadline,” he further mentioned.
Some of the customers however opined that the ministry should do more publicity about the exercise, because many people, particularly those in the rural areas were unaware of the exercise.
“They should constantly remind people through the airwaves and television about the exercise,” stated Mr Francis Npong, one of the customers.
In defending the rational behind the exercise, the Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu recently indicated that the registration of SIM cards was to facilitate the deployment of the Mobile Number Portability in the telecommunications industry in the country.
This technology, he explained, would enable mobile phone users in the country to shift from one service provider to another, whiles still retaining their numbers.
Such a system, he noted, would also discourage poor service delivery by the operators because customers would be free to switch to any other provider when they are dissatisfied with the quality of service from their current provider.
Mr Iddrisu further indicated that the registration of SIM cards would provide a database of users which could be relied upon in cases where the SIM is used to transmit insults and threatening messages either in the form of phone calls or text messages.