No rush for Ghana Card as deadline for SIM registration nears
The mad rush for Ghana Card which characterised the previous years when the deadline for SIM registration was announced is completely absent as the new deadline draws near.
A visit by Ghana News Agency to the office of the National Identification Authority saw the office completely empty with no human traffic against, what was witnessed during the mass and mop-up exercises.
Mr Ernest Edwin Ahiagbe, District Registration Officer, GRA-NIA in Ho, in the Volta region revealed that more than 2,000 backlog of printed Ghana cards are yet to be collected by applicants in the Ho Municipality.
He said the cards were for people who registered during the mop-up and mass registration exercises in 2019 and 2020.
Mr Ahiagbe said though they continued to announce to applicants to come for the card, some had still not come.
He said his outfit was employing all necessary means to encourage the applicants to come for the cards including calling them through their mobile phones.
The Registration Officer said the number of people coming to the office to collect the card was not encouraging and appealed to the media to help drive the urge for applicants to come for the cards.
Mr Mawuli Katahena, Volta and Oti Regional Manager of MTN told the GNA that the number of customers not yet linked to their Ghana cards accounted for about 0.2 per cent.
He said the bulk of visitors to its offices were new registrants and agents with bulk Sim cards that must be registered.
He said merchant sim cards were also being registered, with owners having to produce corporate registration documents.
GNA observed fewer people at the main MTN office in the heart of the Volta Regional Capital a day to the May 31 deadline for the re-registration of sim cards – a place which had been the sight of heavy human presence few months ago, when the sim blockages begun.
“We have cleared a lot and what is left is just a handful- about 0.2 per cent of the people. Our normal customer service is ongoing, and those are the people you see there.”
Source: GNA