President John Dramani Mahama has revealed that an alleged conflict between former Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful and the former head of the National Identification Authority (NIA) contributed to the challenges that plagued the previous SIM registration exercise.

According to him, the lack of coordination between the two key officials undermined the effectiveness of the exercise, which he believes, caused inconvenience for many Ghanaians.

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“Some time back we were told to register our SIM cards which caused great distress to Ghanaians. Even MTN had to mount canopies just to attend to everyone,” President Mahama said while addressing a gathering on Thursday, March 19, 2026.

He disclosed that the public was unaware of the internal issues affecting the process at the time, detailing that the former minister was not on speaking terms with the head of the NIA at the time.

“When that was ongoing, we didn’t know that the former Minister of Communications [Ursula Owusu] was not on speaking terms with the former head of the NIA. They had issues between them,” he disclosed.

Mahama explained that the disagreement affected the proper integration of the SIM registration with the national identification system, which is critical for ensuring traceability.

“When you are undertaking a SIM registration, it is important to add it to the national registration so that a number can easily be identified and traced to the owner should that person be engaged in wrongdoing,” he continued.

He noted that the failure to link SIM cards to the Ghana Card ultimately rendered the exercise ineffective.

“The sad part is that, we didn’t do that, making the previous SIM registration exercise wasteful,” the president stated.

Mahama indicated that lessons have been learnt from the past exercise, with plans underway to implement a more efficient system.

“The new one the Minister of Communications is about to do, the SIM will be linked to the Ghana Card which will make it impossible to change it. Everything involving that particular SIM card will easily be traced to its owner,” he explained.

He added that the new process will be simplified to reduce the burden on citizens.

“We will do it in such a way that you will receive a code on your phone, that will demand you to write your name, Ghana card number and other details which will directly go into the database and will directly link your SIM card to the Ghana Card. You will not need to visit or go all the way to the telcos just to register the SIM,” he noted.

Mahama further assured that the re-registration exercise will be free of charge, with telecom companies expected to bear the cost.

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“The process will be free and it is the telcos that will bear the cost for the re-registration. All you need to do is to input your details when you receive the code,” he said.



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