Sam George, the Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, has announced that the planned SIM registration exercise will come at no cost to the Ghanaian taxpayer.
According to Sam George, the SIM registration exercise will not impose any financial burden on taxpayers.
Speaking in an interview on Channel One TV’s Face to Face on Tuesday, March 24, Sam George stated, “Part of the reason the Public Procurement Authority invited me to appear with my ministry is that we have written to the PPA and stated that this will be at no cost to the government.
“The commitment authorisation we received from the Finance Ministry for both the CERR and the SIM registration platform was to the effect that it will be at no cost to the Ghanaian taxpayer. When it is not borne by the taxpayer, you need to justify how it will be done,” he said.
“Engagement. We have engaged with the telecom companies and explained to them why they need to bear the cost,” he added.
Sam George further disclosed that the process would be competitive and not sole-sourced.
“We’re not sole-sourcing,” he added.
Also, Sam George has urged Ghanaians to fully participate in the upcoming SIM registration exercise.
He added, “It’s advisable for everybody to ensure that when we roll out the registration process, you take part in it. Bearing in mind that you took part in a system that traumatised people—people queued for days—but now you have a system that will allow you to do this in the comfort of your home. The process will be mandatory for the use of telecom services in the country”.
“I’m confident that in the third quarter of this year—anytime between July, August, and September—we will definitely be in a good position to roll out,” he said.
In related news, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the former Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, has issued a rebuttal to claims made by President John Dramani Mahama and the current Minister for Communications, Sam George.
President John Dramani Mahama, addressing a gathering on Thursday, March 19, 2026, claimed there was a conflict between former Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful and the former head of the National Identification Authority (NIA), which caused the challenges in the last SIM registration exercise.
President Mahama, addressing a gathering on Thursday, March 19, 2026, stated, “Some time back, we were told to register our SIM cards, which caused great distress to Ghanaians. Even MTN had to mount canopies just to attend to everyone.”
“When that was ongoing, we didn’t know that the former Minister of Communications [Ursula Owusu] was not on speaking terms with the former head of the NIA. They had issues between them,” he disclosed.
President Mahama added, “When you are undertaking a SIM registration, it is important to add it to the national registration so that a number can easily be identified and traced to the owner should that person be engaged in wrongdoing”.
“The sad part is that we didn’t do that, making the previous SIM registration exercise wasteful,” the president stated.
The former Minister for Communications and Digitalisation highlighted that 80% of the facial biometrics captured matched with the data in the NIA database, adding that the process was not useless or an empty exercise, as people are now desperately trying to suggest.
She disclosed that all that is left now is less than 20% to be biometrically verified in what can only be termed stage 3 of what we started.
In a statement titled “Rebuttal Statement on SIM Registration Falsehoods,” Ursula Owusu-Ekuful stated, “The only issue was that the National Identification Authority did not allow the SIM registration system to connect to their database for biometric verification at that second stage. That was the challenge. This, however, did not prevent us from compiling a comprehensive database of all activated SIMS in Ghana, and I thank all well-meaning Ghanaians once again for their cooperation, which ensured that the mass registration exercise was successfully completed with the registration of almost 30 million SIM cards. That SIM Registry database exists and is hosted securely by the national Electronic Transactions Regulator, NITA, in the National Data Centre!!
And yet, despite that limitation, what do we know today? We know that when an audit was conducted in 2025, more than 80% of the facial biometrics captured matched with the data in the NIA database. That is important. That means the process was not some useless or empty exercise as they are now desperately trying to suggest. In fact, it shows that the major part of the work has already been done.
All that is left now is for the less than 20% to be biometrically verified in what can only be termed stage 3 of what we started. That is all.
So the question is simple: if they say the previous exercise had no value or no data, then where did the 80% verification result come from? What data did they use for that audit? You cannot say on one hand that there was no data, and then on the other hand use audit outcomes based on that same exercise. That is contradictory. That is dishonest”.
See the post below:
The SIM re-registration exercise comes at no cost to the Ghanaian taxpayer. – Sam George #UTVGhana pic.twitter.com/2KUYI48DXb
— UTV Ghana (@utvghana) March 25, 2026