The long queues at the telecommunication service offices across the country for the SIM Card re-registration exercise is a software challenge, a Telecom Analyst, Derrick Laryea, has said.
Speaking to Francis Abban on Morning Starr Thursday, Mr. Laryea expressed worry on the chaotic turn of events with the on-going reregistration of SIM cards across the country.
According to him, per his inside information the National Identification Authority (NIA) is not comfortable with the software being used in the data collection adding, that “from the virtue of the fact that the NIA has complained about the manner in which the data is being collected.”
“Private data of citizens are being collected by a software that has been developed by another private company. There are so many questions that need to be answered. The software the telcos are using to collect the data is from a private company. You could speak to the NIA and check, don’t take my word for it if you don’t want to but that’s the feedback I get, that it’s from a private company,” he stressed.
He continued “We are collecting this data and storing it. So it is important that we have a regulator, a Minister or Ministry involved in this process and it’s really crucial that they speak up and it’s important they bring a halt to this because it’s a nightmare. Because these people mean no harm they just want to register their SIM cards and get on with their day to day business. It’s quite sad that they have to go through this process of queuing for 6 to 8 hours.”
The analyst also called on the Ministry of Communication, the National Communication Authority among other stakeholders to revisit the whole exercise in order to save Ghanaians from the ordeal of reregistration.
“They need to sit down and have a conversation that is in the public interest, not in any other person’s interest or any other person’s commercial interest. It needs to be in the interest of the consumer,” he added.
starrfm.com
