Ghana’s Minister for Communications, Digital Technology, and Innovation, Samuel Nartey George, has confirmed that telecommunications companies will bear the full cost of the upcoming national SIM card registration exercise, marking a policy shift that repositions regulatory accountability squarely on the private sector.
In an Interview on Channel One on Monday, the Minister underscored the government’s intention to formalize this directive through legislative backing, describing the registration as a “vital step” in strengthening the country’s digital infrastructure.
“They [telcos] will pay for it. I will make them pay for it. There is an LI that we will be laying before Parliament,” he stated.
The proposed Legislative Instrument (LI) is expected to codify the financial obligations of telcos regarding SIM registration. If passed, it would mark a departure from previous exercises that involved cost-sharing models or consumer-borne expenses.
He was also keen to draw a clear line between the forthcoming initiative and past efforts, most notably, the controversial re-registration campaign led by former Communications Minister Ursula Owusu.
“That was one of my criticisms of Ursula Owusu, that the re-registration she did and that is why I have been clear that I am not doing a re-registration. I am doing a SIM registration,” he said, stressing that this process is not a repeat, but rather a reset.
At the heart of the new framework is the Ghana Card, which will serve as the sole form of identification for verifying SIM ownership, a move aimed at creating a centralized, credible digital identity database that aligns with national digitization goals.
He further went on to explain that “the last LI on the record for registration was 2010 by Haruna Iddrisu and don’t forget that registration Haruna did there was no Ghana Card at the time and so there was no single source of truth.”
The decision to impose costs on telcos could have broader implications for the sector. While it reinforces the state’s authority to hold service providers accountable, it may also prompt operators to push back or pass costs indirectly to consumers.
