NIA Blows Hot And Cold Over Usefulness Of SIM Card Reregistration

In response to the leakage of correspondence between the National Identification Authority (NIA) and the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications on the usefulness of the ongoing SIM re-registration exercise, the NIA has released a supposed statement of clarification.

However, rather than clarify matters, the statement rather muddies the issues even more.

According to the statement signed by Head of Corporate Affairs, Abudu Abdul-Ganiyu, the NIA stands by every word that is contained in the reply that it had given the head of the Chamber of Telecommunications, Kenneth Ashigbey, who had sought to know if the NIA was interfacing with the Communications Ministry in the exercise.

It would be recalled that in that response, the NIA’s Executive Secretary, Professor. Ken Attafuah, had said that the NIA could not guarantee the quality of the data being collected in the SIM re-registration exercise.

However, while affirming that it stands by that statement, the same NIA also says in the latest response that it supports the SIM re-registration exercise.

“The NIA stands by every statement contained in its response letter of 13th September 2021 as being technically factual, accurate, correct and honest,” the NIA said.

However, in a subsequent paragraph, the NIA states that “(it) fully supports SIM card registration in the country and does not in any way contest the mandate of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization or the National Communication Authority (NCA) to implement SIM card registration in accordance with the law.”

It adds, “Indeed, NIA has fully co-operated in good faith and to the best of its abilities with MoCD and NCA.”

Now it is not clear what exactly the NIA’s position is on the SIM card re-registration, as in the 13th September letter to Ken Ashigbey, it had said it could not guarantee the quality of the data being collected.

The NIA went on to express disappointment that the letter to Dr. Ken Ashigbey had leaked.