The chief executive officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr. Ken Ashigbey, has said the blocking of some 9 million unregistered SIM cards will have a telling toll on the revenue of Mobile Network Operators in the country.

Dr. Ashigbey explained that if each of the nine million subscribers spends, at least, GHS20 every month on all the various networks; that’s a huge revenue loss.

That notwithstanding, the blocking of SIMs has to be done even though it is worrying, he said.

Dr Ashigbey raised these concerns while speaking in an interview on Thursday, 1 December 2022.

The Chamber issued a statement to inform the public that starting from the close of 30 November 2022, its members, “AirtelTigo, MTN and Vodafone” will “begin deactivating some category of SIM cards in compliance with the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation's directive issued on November 11, 2022.”

The statement, which was released on Wednesday, 30 November 2022, stressed that “only subscribers that have completed stage 1 (linkage to Ghana card) but are yet to complete stage 2 (biometric capture) of the SIM registration, will have their SIM cards blocked.”

The Chamber also encouraged “all subscribers who have acquired Ghana cards but are yet to complete stage 2 (biometric capture) to do so without delay.”

“Our members are obliged by the directive to completely deactivate all subscriber SIMs which have not completed the biometric capture registration by close of business today, November 30, 2022,” the Chamber’s statement continued.

It said: “Subscribers with Ghana cards can avoid this inconvenience by completing the registration process,” and pledged that: “Our members remain committed to supporting the efforts of all stakeholders to ensure that every customer in every part of the country is able to register their SIM card(s) with the Ghana card.”

Since November 20, the telecommunications companies in Ghana have been blocking data services for subscribers who have only linked their Ghana Card and SIMs (Stage 1) but have not captured their biometric data (Stage 2) as part of the SIM registration process as directed by the Ursula Owusu-Ekuful-led Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation.