Political activist Bernard Oduro Takyi (B.O.T.) has urged Ghanaians to boycott the ongoing sim card re-registration process entirely.
The 2020 independent candidate for the Sunyani West Constituency in the Bono Region observed that the process by the telecommunication companies to get Ghanaians to queue to re-register their sim cards is “useless and a waste of time.”
The government-sanctioned re-registration process is to get all mobile phone users to register their SIM cards by the end of March this year to prevent them from losing their existing phone numbers.
The process has been characterized by long, winding queues, which subscribers complain about daily at the offices of mobile network operators (MNOs).
There was frustration on subscribers’ faces when our reporter, Wisdom Hededzome, visited some of the registration centres in Accra yesterday.
Most of them said the process was slow, and they had to queue for long hours before leaving the centres to work.
However, speaking on Dwaboase on TV XYZ Tuesday, Mr Oduro Takyi, who had observed the process, indicated that it was worthless, explaining that the National Identification Authority (N.I.A.), which has the data of most mobile phone subscribers, could merge the data with the ones the MNOs have to save Ghanaians the frustrations.
In his view, the Akufo-Addo government “has refused to think” on its feet to enable them to adopt a more conducive and efficient way to obtain the data of mobile phone users.
“H.E. Dr Bawumia, who is spearheading a digitalization drive in the country, should have known better and adopted a more efficient way of getting the process done without subjecting Ghanaians to this frustration by lining them up and reducing productivity,” he told host Prince Minkah.
“Ghanaians must boycott the process. This will force the government to think,” he stated and went on to explain that when Ghanaians refuse to register their SIM cards, the MNOs whose revenues are derived from subscribers will then engage the government on a more conducive way to get the subscribers to register to prevent revenue losses that will come with the disconnection of mobile phone users’ SIM cards.
“When you boycott the process, the telcos cannot disconnect you because they will have to protect their source of revenue. In that case, when the government realizes it will lose revenue from the telcos [MNOs], it will be forced to think and do things right,” B.O.T. added.
Meanwhile, many subscribers continue to show up at the various offices of the MNOs, join long queues for long hours to register their SIM cards as the deadline draws closer.
Source: myxyzonline.com
