SIM registration exercise important for digital economy - Okyere-Fosu

Director General of National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Richard Okyere-Fosu, has said the ongoing registration of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card was needed for a robust digital economy. He explained that a digital economy needs a database, digital ID, among others to thrive, therefore, the re-registration of SIM cards was critical to the fight against cybercrime. Mr Okyere-Fosu urged all to desist from politicizing the registration exercise to help make society a safer place to live in. Speaking at the launch of a new office of eSolutions consulting in Accra, the Director General of NITA said, "The exercise is important for all of us to note. Let’s not play politics with it because if you register your SIM, we know who you are, if you commit a crime, we know who you are and it’s important." "We talk about cybersecurity when people are doing things hiding behind unregistered SIMs or SIMs that are registered in other people’s names and they are committing crimes, we need to know who is committing the crime so SIM registration is very important. It’s just like our national ID card.it’s very important. For our digital economy, we must have an ID payment platform and ID is digital ID, SIM registration and all those things are important," he added. Meanwhile, Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has said all unregistered SIM cards will be blocked by October 31, 2022. She warned vendors to desist from pre-registering and selling SIM cards to customers as the act was an offence which could lead to the imprisonment of culprits for up to 5 years. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful urged culprits to, as a matter of urgency, delink the SIM cards and work in accordance with the law. ESA/FNOQ