Alhaji Issahaque Salia, Upper West Regional Minister, has appealed to people in the region, to register their SIM Cards to enable the security agencies to deal with crime and other social vices. “The use of phones is meant to enhance national cohesion and economic growth but some people in society have wrongly used them to cause crime and disturb national security,” he observed. Alhaji Salia therefore called on mobile phone users to respect the National Communication Authority’s (NCA) directive to have their SIM Cards registered, since security is very important in the promotion of national development. He made the appeal when Mr Abed Bandim, Consumer Affairs Manager of the NCA paid a courtesy on him at Wa at the weekend, to begin an eight-day tour of the region to monitor the progress of the SIM Cards registration exercise. The tour will also provide the NCA the opportunity to partner with the Information Services Department and the media to reach out to the rural people and educate them on the need to patronise the exercise. Alhaji Salia expressed disappointment about the poor quality of service delivery by some of the network operators and called on the NCA to be critical about the situation. He asked the NCA to persuade telecom operators to extend their services to the number of rural communities that are out of coverage area. Mr Bandim said inadequate network coverage of service providers, especially mobile phones is of grave concern to the NCA. He said the NCA is trying to ensure that quality service delivery among telecom operators is enhanced while coverage is extended to the entire country to help promote the socio-economic activities of the people. Mr Bandim announced that the NCA would soon launch a Rural Connectivity Project, to extend coverage of network services to the rural people. Source: GNA