Mobile phone subscribers in Wa lament SIM blockage in ongoing re-registration exercise

Correspondence from Upper West Region

Following the blockage of SIM cards of numerous people who have failed to complete the registration of their SIM cards in the ongoing SIM re-registration exercise, some residents in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region are crying foul over the development.

According to them, the occurrence is affecting businesses and the livelihoods of the affected persons due to the long hours spent in queues to get registered.

They claim that what is even worse is the fact that some of those who had their numbers fully registered still got their SIMs blocked by the system.

Most of the mobile subscribers GhanaWeb spoke to also lamented the discomfort they encountered recently in successfully making calls due to the long caller tunes advertising the re-registration exercise.

They say as a result of the long caller tunes, one is often required to dial a number a couple of times to access a line since the phone often gets cut off after ringing only twice or sometimes even once, therefore requiring a continuous redial of the same number.

"The re-registration exercise is really frustrating as people have to leave their jobs to be in long queues just to register their SIMs again. Sometimes after spending the whole day in the queue, they come to tell you that the network is down and that you need to leave and come another day. And as for the NCA and the Consumer Protection Agency, what is their mandate? These days, when you make a call, the caller tune will talk so long so much that in the end, it rings only once or twice and then, one would have to keep dialling a couple of times before getting the person you're calling", Kofi Seidu lamented.

Another subscriber, Isaac Emmanuel said: "The re-registration exercise is just a waste of time and reducing the country's productivity with all these queues when the NIA could have provided the telcos with the needed data. They have even ended up blocking the SIM cards of people fully re-registered. I'm a victim myself. When that happens, one needs to go and join the queue for the process again. If you're not fortunate enough and the system goes down, then you become stranded. Why must people suffer due to the inefficiencies of those in charge?"

"It's very frustrating with the introduction of this SIMs re-registration exercise. Most people who have done the biometric still got their SIMs blocked. This means they would have to leave their work to get them unblocked. We can't quantify how much people have lost during the period within which the SIMs were blocked since phone aids a lot in facilitating businesses," Rakiya Idrees vented her frustrations to GhanaWeb.

"For me, what kills me is the failure of the Consumer Protection Agency to call the telcos to order. You call someone and all you hear is this advertisement about the re-registration exercise and the phone only rings once or twice and cuts off. Sometimes one needs to call the same person about five times to be able to attract the person's attention who is being phoned. Something must be done about this," Ishaaque Musah indicated.

SIM cards of mobile phone subscribers who have failed to complete the second phase of their SIM re-registration are being blocked to compel owners to abide by the directive.

The situation has shot up the numbers of subscribers at the various telecom offices in the municipality and across the country to get fully registered to regain control of their SIMs.