MTN GHANA MAY DISCONNECT 5.7M SUBSCRIBERS’ SIM CARDS OVER BIOMETRIC REGISTRATION

MTN GHANA, a significant subsidiary of MTN Group, announced yesterday that it might disconnect about 5.7 million

SIM cards of its subscribers over biometric registration, to comply with Ghana regulators. In a statement, the mobile operator said it would comply with the directive from the National Communications Authority (NCA) communicated to all Telecom operators in a meeting held on November 17, 2022. The SIM cards will be deactivated on December 1, 2022. “MTN Ghana will commence the complete disconnection of all SIM cards that have completed Stage 1, Linkage of Ghana card ID to SIM card, but have not completed Stage 2, Biometric Capture, or SIM cards not fully registered with the Ghana Card from December 1, 2022,” it said. MTN said it had already complied with the first stage of the directive by deactivating the data services of SIM cards that have not fully registered with the Ghana Card on November 20, 2022, as directed. “Customers should note that a fully registered SIM card is one that has successfully completed both Stage 1, Linkage, and Stage 2, Bio-capture,” MTN said. According to MTN, all deactivated SIM cards could be reactivated within six months from December 1, 2022, the date of deactivation, by completing the bio-capture process. As of November 26, 2022, 22.1 million MTN Ghana subscribers had successfully linked their Ghana card to their SIM cards (Stage 1), while 16.4m had successfully completed the biocapture phase (Stage 2). As such, around 5.8 million subscribers will be eligible for deactivation on December 1, the mobile operator said. |