The National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Attorney-General (A-G) have been sued by a pressure organization called The People’s Project (TPP) about the ongoing SIM card re-registration effort.
They are asking the high court to declare the deadline and any related sanctions void.
The group claimed in a statement published on Friday, September 9, that the exercise was being carried out arbitrarily. Therefore, they are looking for :
The declaration further states that, on a true and proper interpretation of Articles 2, 23, and 296 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, the directive by the Minister for Communication, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, on Sunday, July 31, 2022, that the 1st Defendant will ensure that all SIM cards that are not re-registered by September 30, 2022, will be blocked while the 2nd Defendant shall maintain upon the National Identification Authority’s inability to provide all Ghanaians with the Ghana card—the sole card to be used for the aforementioned re-registration exercise—is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion; it is therefore unconstitutional, null, invalid, and of no legal significance.”
The organization also requests that the NCA’s current punitive actions, including call barring, be deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court.
“A statement that the first defendant’s decision to limit, penalize, and punish is based on a true and accurate reading of Articles 2, 23, and 296 of the Republic of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.” and forbid unregistered SIMs from engaging in certain activities, such as making outgoing calls, beginning in September 2022 is unlawful.” dated September 4, 2022, is arbitrary, irrational, unconstitutional, and has no legal force because not all Ghanaians have been given the Ghana card.
Before the deadline of September 30 expires, the National Communication Authority (NCA) has ordered telecommunication firms to start limiting mobile telephony services to unregistered SIM card customers.
In a statement, the Authority’s Director-General said that the outgoing calls and data services for a group of consecutive numbers would be cut off for two days each week on a rotating basis.
“Mobile Network Operators” (MNOs) are required to separate unregistered SIM cards into five separate batches.
These steps shall not include SMS blocking in order to give delinquent users the opportunity to begin registering if they so desire.Parts of the announcement stated that “subscribers who fully register their SIM cards within the period they have been blocked would only be unblocked by the MNOs after 48 hours to avoid the MNOs’ intermittently meddling with their systems.”
The impacted parties have expressed a wide range of grievances as a result.
