Photographer: Waldo Swiegers, Bloomberg.
MTN Ghana, a significant subsidiary of MTN Group, announced on Thursday that it might disconnect about 5.7 million SIM cards of its subscribers over biometric registration to comply with the regulators of Ghana.
In a statement, the mobile operator said it would comply with the directive from the National Communications Authority (NCA) communicated to all Telecom operators in a meeting held on November 17, 2022. The SIM cards will be deactivated on December 1, 2022.
"MTN Ghana will commence the complete disconnection of all SIM cards that have completed Stage 1, Linkage of Ghana card ID to SIM card, but have not completed Stage 2, Biometric Capture, or SIM cards not fully registered with the Ghana Card from December 01, 2022," it said.
MTN said it had already complied with the first stage of the directive by deactivating the data services of SIM cards that have not fully registered with the Ghana Card on November 20, 2022, as directed.
"Customers should note that a fully registered SIM card is one that has successfully completed both Stage 1, Linkage, and Stage 2, Bio-capture," MTN said.
According to MTN, all deactivated SIM cards can be reactivated within six months from December 1, 2022, the date of deactivation, by completing the bio-capture process.
"Deactivated SIM cards will be recycled if they are not reactivated by the end of May 2023. MTN urges all its customers who are not fully registered to endeavour to do so as soon as possible at any of our service centres,"
MTN said it understood the inconvenience the deactivation has caused its customers and is willing to assist to get customers back online.
"As of November 26, 2022, 22.1 million MTN Ghana subscribers had successfully linked their Ghana card to their SIM cards (Stage 1), while 16.4m had successfully completed the bio-capture phase (Stage 2).
As such, approximately 5.8m subscribers will be eligible for deactivation on December 1, 2022, the mobile operator said.
"Customers who do not have the Ghana card are encouraged to contact the nearest National Identification Authority Office for assistance.
"MTN will provide these customers the needed support with full registration after they have successfully received their Ghana cards. MTN is committed to the national SIM registration exercise to build an accurate customer database to help minimize fraud in the country," it said.
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