The NCA has stated that they will not be held accountable for the wrongful blocking of SIM cards that have gone through the full re-registration process.
Although it empathized with subscribers affected by the blockage, the NCA stressed that telecom operators should bear full responsibility for the situation.
Dr Poku Adusei, the NCA’s Director of Legal Affairs, said it was a mistake to restrict the SIM functions of these subscribers as they are not covered by the announced sanctions.
There have been a lot of complaints recently about SIM cards that have been fully re-registered being blocked as part of sanctions imposed by the government. This has caused a lot of inconvenience for people and chaos at registration centers.
“The directive was that if you have not gone through the two-stage process to register, certain sanctions could be applied to you but, in applying the sanctions, it is possible there could be an overreach.
“In that case, that would not be our instruction that there should be that overreach because we don’t control the networks which are in the private hands of the operators,” Dr Adusei said.
The NCA has already been taken to the Supreme Court over the issue.
In a writ issued on Friday, September 9, a pressure group known as The People’s Project (TPP) said the exercise is being done without any clear purpose or plan.
The Peoples project is asking the Supreme Court to declare the deadline and the associated punitive measures null and void, among other reliefs.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has urged Parliament to call the Minister of Communications and the NCA to order.
“It is an indisputable fact that the re-registration of mobile SIM cards policy and its attendant sanctions that are being meted out to Ghanaians by the Ministry of Communications and the National Communications Authority are neither backed by the SIM Registration Regulations, 2011 (L.I 2006) nor the National Identity Register Regulations, 2012 (L.I 2111) or any law in force in the country.
“The decision by these entities to restrict the SIM Cards of Ghanaians including those who have already re-registered their SIM Cards is therefore unlawful, irresponsible and unacceptable to say the least,” part of the statement signed by General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia read.