Ghana Card made a standard requirement for SIM registration

Ghanaians struggle to acquire Ghana Card

Ministry of Communication extends SIM registration deadline

There was a reported stampede at the Head Office of the National Identification Authority in Accra.

This comes in the light of several Ghanaians attempting to acquire the Ghana Card which has now become the standard model of identification in the country.

This also coincides with the struggle of many Ghanaians to acquire the card for the purposes of the ongoing SIM registration exercise which was scheduled to end on March 31, 2022.

According to a video sighted by GhanaWeb, the sheer number of applicants gathered at the head office NIA on Tuesday led to a stampede as the applicants struggled to make their way to the premises.

Amidst the melee, an applicant is heard in the video saying “someone is hurt.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation has announced an extension of the March 31 deadline for the ongoing SIM re-registration exercise.

The Ministry in a release dated Tuesday, March 22, 2022, cited the cause of the extension to a myriad of factors including the number of people without a Ghana Card which is the basic requirement.

“‘The SIM registration exercise began on 1st October, 2021 and is expected to end on 31st March, 2022. As of 17th March, 14,091,542 SIM Cards have been linked to the Ghana Card, 10,348,532 Bio-Captures conducted and 99,445 New SIMs registered. Due to a number of factors including the fact that over 7.5 million citizens and residents are yet to obtain Ghana Cards to enable them to register their SIM cards, it is clear that the deadline for completion of the registration of the remaining active SIM cards cannot be met,” the ministry said.

The release also highlighted efforts to update the SIM Registration Application and the rollout of a self-service app for Ghanaians abroad to also register as some of the reasons for the extension.

“The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation has therefore extended the deadline for the registration of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards to 31st July, 2022,” it added.

Watch the video below.