SIM card registration records high patronage in Wa

Residents in the Wa Municipality are responding enthusiastically to the Ministry of Communication’s directive that all SIM cards be registered by the end of June 2011.

During a visit to the offices of Tigo, Vodafone, MTN and Zain, in Wa, on Tuesday, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) saw long queues of customers waiting patiently to have their SIMs registered by their respective telecommunications service providers.

The Ministry of Communications has indicated in its directive that by the end of July next year, all SIMs that are unregistered would be deactivated within the system.

A national identification card, such as the Voter and National Health Insurance identity cards with residential addresses and other relevant personal data, are some of the requirements customers need to present to have their SIMs registered.

Officials of all the service providers who spoke to the GNA praised their customers for attaching seriousness to the exercise.

At the Office of Vodafone, Mr. Alhassan Abukar, the Regional Manager, said they had decentralised their registration processes to all the districts to allow more customers to register without incurring travelling costs.

He, however, said they were having difficulties in registering some of the customers as they come to them without valid I.D cards.

Mr. Abukar said the directive that new SIM cards should be registered before being given to customers was affecting their customer expansion base as many customers failed to buy new SIMs because they did not have the required data for the registration at the time of buying the SIM.

In his opinion, new customers should be given the SIM card while the service provider kept on reminding them through text messages, for their personal data for registration.

Some of the customers told the GNA that they took the exercise seriously because they did not want to lose their numbers.

They said though the deadline for the registration was still very far, it was better to do it earlier to be on the safer side.

Source: GNA