The National Communications Authority (NCA) has warned against the renting and leasing of SIM cards by some individuals and entities to other persons, especially foreigners and nationals in Ghana.
The NCA noted that such practices breach the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Act 2016, nullify the ongoing sim reregistration exercise, and violate data protection rules.
“The NCA wished to state categorically that such individuals and entities and their mode of operations have not been sanctioned by the Authority. Their business model is classified as pre-registration of SIMs and as such contravenes Section 73b(1) of the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Act 2016, which states that ‘A person shall not deal in a pre-registered subscriber identity module'”, the Authority said in a statement on Tuesday, September 19 2023.
“This unauthorized and illegal service violates the objective of the SIM registration exercise, which seeks to link a SIM to a verified identity of an individual as a means of curbing criminal activities and maintaining a SIM database with integrity. In addition, usage of this service means compliance with the Data Protection Act cannot be established”, the statement added.
The Authority warned all individuals and entities engaged in the practice to stop while charging persons who patronise their services to desist from the same.
It urged the public to follow the approved route to obtaining a valid SIM using the Ghana Card for citizens and non-citizens and passports for visiting foreign nationals.
