1st August 2022 and we woke up with news that the end date for registering a sim card using the Ghana Card has been extended to the 30th of September 2022. The Minister for Communications in her Press Briefing indicated that some individuals had accessed loans from the various online service providers so they just intend to not register. She referred to that act as “evil corruption”.
The National Identification Authority(NIA) ended the mass registration exercise in 2020. Two years ago. Where were all these individuals currently queuing to register for the cards? Had it not been for the fact that the Ghana Card was now going to become the main means of identification, would there have been a surge in the number of people trying to register for it ?
It appears the Ghana person almost always takes a non-interested approach to national matters only to come and scream when the walls are caving in. I have listened to various people claiming they would never register their sim cards and that government should go ahead and block their lines. These same people would complain when the Police are not able to trace a kidnapper’s phone number.
There is a real, honest desire by this government to centralize citizens information to help in taxation and developing pro-poor policies. I am of the firm opinion that the many of the taxes and levies which are blanket in nature would have been more targeted if we had a central database.
Controller-General says he has been able to clear over 104 Million GHS worth of ghost names after asking workers to include the Ghana Card numbers in their registration. SSNIT has also saved the state from paying 25 Million GHS annually to ghost names in their database.
“Only 2,364,348 are bearing the burden of the entire population as taxpayers as of August 2021,”
Finance Minister ,2021
There are less than 3Million individuals paying direct taxes in Ghana. The rest are supporting the economy through indirect taxes which don’t arise if you don’t buy anything in a supermarket or transact electronically. The question here now is, how does the remaining 27million expect the economy to grow when they are not paying their proper share of taxes?
People have raised issues concerning wrong names and missing Ghana cards amongst others. Those are genuine concerns and individuals with such problems can move to the El-Wak stadium to make those corrections and get new Ghana cards. The Authority on its own website has a lot of cards that it still has to issue out. The Authority has to give proper timelines to the ministry of communication so that a proper date can set for the end of the sim registration. We cannot have an Authority that is slowing citizens down and then a Ministry also holding our necks with timelines.
The earlier we get our friends and families to register for the Ghana Card the better. We cannot always have our eyes on the West. We cannot jump processes and procedures that would allow us to become like the West and cry when we see them prospering. This sim registration extension should be properly analyzed and a proper date set for its end. A digital society is a must and we shouldn’t allow the few nonchalant individuals (be it workers in the NIA or citizens) to prevent us from getting to where we want to go.
