The founder and leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Percival Kofi Akpaloo, has pleaded with the National Communications Authority to extend the period for the ongoing sim card registration.
According to the 2020 presidential candidate of the LPG, extending the deadline date will allow all persons who are yet to bear the Ghana Card to acquire it to enable them to do the registration.
His comments come after the Minister for Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful warned that the deadline for the registration of SIM cards in Ghana, will not be extended for a second time.
The exercise which began on 1st October 2021, was originally scheduled to end on 31st March 2022 but was extended by the sector Ministry to 31st September 2022, because over 7.5 million citizens and residents at the time, were yet to obtain their Ghana Card, to enable them to register their SIM cards.
Madam Ursula Owusu-Ekuful noted that all unregistered sim cards will be deactivated after the deadline date slated for September ending.
But to Kofi Akpaloo, it would be needless to take such deactivating step because the majority of the general public still don’t have their Ghana Cards yet at hand.
Therefore, he pleads with Ursula Owusu and her sector to extend the period for the registration exercise.
“For me, it is needless to deactivate the unregistered sim cards because the NIA themselves communicated that due to logistical constraints they cannot register all the people, so I believe we need to exercise some sort of restraints.”
He added, “if you resort to doing it stiffer, you will destroy a lot of people’s businesses, and a whole lot so we must consider that….”
“I’m pleading with Ursula Owusu to extend the sim registration because many people have not still received the Ghana card.
“I think that it should be extended to the end of the year. For the September deadline, we have still not enabled people to obtain the Ghana Card to register their SIM Card.
“Some people have still not been able to get their Ghana cards done. It’ll be great to get an extension of the Sim Card registration,” Kofi Akpaloo made the appeal on Angel FM’s Anopa Bofo morning show hosted by Kwamina Sam Biney.
The Liberal Party leader, calling on the general public to engage in the reregistration exercise, said the NCA must also be adherent to advice from well-meaning Ghanaians than thinking the best way to act is going hard on the people.
He was quick to condemn the utterances of MP for Ningo Prampram, on the ticket of the NDC, Samuel Nartey George for influencing the youth not to patronize the exercise with his popular ‘stubborn academy’ tag.
According to Kofi Akpaloo, a lawmaker of Sam George’s calibre who makes laws for the people must not inculcate such behaviour because it was “wrong and unfortunate.”
He further admonished the public to assist the government to educate the people to understand the significance of bearing a Ghana Card.
