As the 31st July 2022 deadline for people to link their mobile phone SIM cards to their Ghana Card fast approaches, telecoms market leader, MTN has warned that it does not intend to give room for any customer who fails to meet the timeline as directed by government.
The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Serlom Adadevoh, gave the warning in Kumasi at a media and stakeholders Forum for selected journalists and others.
Adadevoh disclosed that MTN had, as at close of work on Wednesday June 22, 2022, completed the merger process of about 16.8 million representing 60 percent of its customers.
He noted that about 10.8 million others representing 40 percent of MTN subscribers have also completed only the first process involving self-service who must necessarily go to any of the set up bio registration centres in the country to complete their National Identification process in compliance with the government’s policy directive.
Adadevoh emphasized that MTN Ghana will effectively block the mobile phone contact of any of its subscribers who will be unable to complete the merger after the 31st deadline.
He however noted that the timeline for the completion of the SIM Card-Ghana Card merger, which is 31st July, is different from the Bank of Ghana’s deadline to all Banks in the country, which is the 30th of this month, to stop accepting any other nationally recognized ID Card for purposes of banking transactions and therefore urged members of the public to take note of the time difference in the two national policy directives.
Touching on other issues, Adadevor disclosed that MTN is on course to invest about one point-seven billion Ghana Cedis in investment in Ghana’s telecommunication infrastructure this year while the ultimate target is one billion Dollars in infrastructure by the end of 2025.
He said his company is supporting the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, GIFEC to expand telephony to every rural area in the country with the objective to increasing telecommunication access.
Adadevoh expressed worry about the rising rate of destruction of fibre cables which is one of the means through which telecommunication services to people.
The CEO mentioned theft, destruction through road construction among others as the major cause of the problem which he noted is contributing to poor communication services sometimes.
He therefore appealed to all stakeholders to help stop the problem so as to ensure uninterrupted service provision.