Communication Ministry awaits NCA's advice

Ho, June 24, GNA - The Ministry of Communication is awaiting "sound advice", from the National Communication Authority (NCA), to enable the Ministry to decide if the period for registering mobile phone Sim cards should be extended or not.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu Minister of Communication gave the hint at a workshop on 93Electromagnetic Fields Exposure and Health", organized by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, in Ho on Thursday. He assured that the Ministry's decision would be in the national interes= t. Until the Ministry of Communication decides otherwise, mobile phone users would be required to register their Sim cards by Thursday June 30, or have them de-activated.

Mr Haruna said the registration of mobile Sim cards would eliminate abuses in the use of mobile phones adding that guidelines have been developed to regulate a telephony sector in which subscribers would have value for money.

He said those guidelines were being developed into regulations before being taken to Parliament for passage into law. Mr Haruna said 4,000 mobile phones would be distributed among a number of essential service providers to facilitate emergency response.

Meanwhile with a week to the June 30th deadline, offices of most communication companies in Ho are regularly inundated with subscribers calling to register their sim cards.

Mr Ebenezer Biedo, Branch Manager of MTN, and Mr Elorm Kwesi Kpe, Regional Sales Manager of Expresso, told the GNA that the response was positive and that might suggest that more time would be needed to capture every subscriber. 24 June 11