At their maiden meeting, NIA indicated it has all requisite data that can be shared with the Telcos to avoid people having to queue to register the SIM cards. The Telcos were elated with the idea; however, the Ministry of Communication and NCA were not in support. They mentioned that a private company had been contracted to develop an App for the registration; hence NIA should release their data to the said company.
NIA then argued that if NCA insists on the registration, NIA will provide them with the necessary devices for the verification. MOC objected because the amount NIA quoted was too much for the devices. Regarding this, NIA indicated to MOC that they purchase verification devices whilst NIA certifies same. MOC asserted that all they needed was NIA’s data to do the verification; however, the NIA objected to it.
It took the intervention of the Vice President for NIA to release some part of their data to NCA for the private company to do the verification. And I must state that the verification they are doing is not authentic. As stated in the NIA letter, you can’t take a fingerprint picture to verify their system.
“Technically, NIA is unable to verify against the NIS database non-live biometric information of applicants once collected and stored by third parties. NIA cannot guarantee the quality and accuracy of biometric data collected and transferred to it by a user agent. As NIA is not part of the biometric data collection stage of the SIM card registration process, it is also unable to confirm that it is in a position to verify the non-live biometric information to be collected by the telecommunication companies or NCA for and on behalf of the telecommunications companies.” – NIA
MOC and NCA engineered this re-registration without the involvement of NIA’s.
If you are queuing to re-register your SIM, be ready to do it again because the process you are undertaking now is substandard.
Ghanaians are suffering because of one person’s selfish interest. Digitalization should make things easier for Ghanaians and not frustrate us.
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