A Senior Lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, has expressed dissatisfaction in the long queues at the telcos registration centres.

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on Wednesday, he has no idea why the registration of SIM cards has become cumbersome, causing a lot of people to complain.

“A simple process as I am thinking, people should be able to walk through within a short period. So why are we having such difficulty?” he quizzed.

Mr Asah-Asare charged those handling the registration process to develop “something meaningful for all to follow” to ease the queues.

This follows a visit to some SIM card re-registration centres by JoyNews to ascertain the progress of the exercise.

After hours of monitoring, it was observed that the exercise had been marred by long queues, leaving many subscribers frustrated. Some also expressed their anger at the slow pace of the exercise.

Others told the JoyNews team, they were willing to abandon the entire process due to its cumbersome and stressful nature.

They want a more convenient system to eliminate the hurdles surrounding the current manual approach.

But the NCA has assured that it is working together with the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the MNOs to “ensure that the SIM registration process is enhanced to make it fast, secure, safe and convenient for customers”.

Meanwhile, mobile users are pleading with the Communication Ministry and the National Communications Authority (NCA) to extend the deadline for the exercise.

Speaking to JoyNews’ Blessed Sogah, many users say they have to queue for hours and sometimes days to get their sims registered.

“Everywhere you go you are very stranded, wasting a whole lot of days here is very frustrating, they should extend the days so we could have time to do, for some of us we are supposed to go to work or do our normal routine, but we are stuck here throughout the day,” one mobile user said.

Others blamed the poor network services at the registration centres explaining that users could be at the centres for hours but cannot register because the network isn't working.

“So we are pleading with them to do something about the time,” one lady told JoyNews.

At a registration centre in Nungua, one mobile user explained that she and others would officially resume work next week. They are, however, unable to register their sims.

She pleaded for an extension. “They should give us enough time so we can do it.”

The re-registration of SIM cards officially kicked off on October 1, 2021.

The exercise is in accordance with the Subscriber Identity Module Registration Regulations, 2011; LI 2006 is to curb SIM Boxing and other criminal activities perpetrated by fraudsters using fake SIM cards and facilitate E-education, among others.

The Ghana Identification card is the only acceptable identification card for the ongoing registration exercise.