The National Communications Authority (NCA) has promised that “there will be deeper collaboration to ensure that all associated challenges with the SIM Card Registration exercise are addressed promptly”.

JoyNews’ checks across many registration centres in Accra on Tuesday, January 11, revealed that scores of registrants were unsuccessful in completing their registration process due to varied reasons, including congestion and other associated network challenges.

One of the residents indicated that “everywhere you go, you are much stranded for registering a SIM, wasting a whole lot of days throughout; it is very frustrating, so we are appealing to the authorities to do something about it."

The situation at the registration centres raises concerns over the effectiveness of the measures announced last week by the National Communications Authority that it is setting up ad hoc centres at public places to resolve the challenges.

However, after a crunch meeting between the Board of Directors of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Chief Executive Officers of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and the developers of the SIM Card Registration Application, the stakeholders have resolved “that the MNOs will publish the locations for the SIM Registration for subscribers to locate centres close to them easily.”

Additional measures contained in the statement issued by the NCA is as follows:

1. That all stakeholders – the NCA, all MNOs and App designers are committed to collaborating to ensure the success of the exercise.

2. That all MNOs will work to improve the customer experience at various registration centres to reduce and eliminate long queues at Stage 2 of registration.

3. All MNOs will take urgent steps to increase the number of agents/staff undertaking the biometric capture at stage 2 of the exercise, open up additional registration points, and increase the number of devices for the biometric capture.

4. The MNOs will publish the SIM Registration locations for subscribers to locate centres close to them easily.

5. That there will be a continuous update of the SIM card registration application to ensure it is robust and efficient at all times.

It is the expectation of all stakeholders that all concerns regarding the SIM Registration will be resolved for a successful exercise.