Private Legal practioner, Ace Ankomah has said the decision of the NCA to extend its SIM card registration exercise is a vindication of his earlier stance that the NCA requires legal backing to enforce its directive. The NCA on Monday announced a three-month extension of its intended de-activation of all unregistered SIM cards after a meeting with the CEO’s of the country’s telecom companies. This was after it had earlier stated many times that subscribers who failed to register before June 30 risk having their SIM cards deactivated permanently. But Mr Ankomah who has always maintained that the NCA’s directive was unwarranted, told Joy News the latest review is an afterthought of the legal implications of any such action. Speaking to Joy FM on Tuesday, Ace Ankomah said the extension is welcome but stressed that this will most importantly allow the NCA to go for the legal backing it needs to compel the telecoms to deactivate people who fail to register their SIM cards. He said there is a draft bill which is being worked on and will require a substantive Act of parliament to make it effective and even though the 90 days will be difficult to get the Act in place, it is still timely and would solve a lot of the problems that have arisen out of the issue. He said parliament is the only institution which can order anyone to surrender customer information with a retroactive effect; something the NCA does not have the power to do. He said the comprehensive law will ensure that the concerns that are being raised by various groups are put to rest if passed by parliament. Meanwhile Communications Minister, Haruna Iddrisu has urged policy think tanks and social commentators who pushed for the extension to begin educating those who have not registered to do so before the next deadline. Source: Joy News/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana