The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey George has suggested that the SIM card of the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has been deactivated despite having gone through the necessary registration processes.
The MP who was speaking on the floor of parliament on Tuesday, June 6, added that the numbers of some judges, lawyers, doctors and Members of Parliament, including him, had been blocked.
He also reiterated the need for the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful to address the house on the process and measures being taken to avert the deactivations made so far.
“We are talking over 8 million SIM cards that have been disconnected including even the Speaker of Parliament. Not the deputy but the Speaker of Parliament himself. His official SIM card has been disconnected even though it was registered in the name of the Parliament of Ghana.
“We have judges, we have lawyers, we have doctors, MPs whose SIM cards were disconnected. Even me, my SIM card was disconnected. Our SIM cards were disconnected,” he said.
The MP subsequently defended persons whose SIM cards have been blocked, adding that it was never their fault to have their SIMS unregistered but rather, the NIA should be blamed for refusing to issue Ghana cards since December 2022.
“Mr. Speaker, it is important that this house takes into consideration that the National Identification Authority (NIA) has failed to issue any Ghanaian citizen a Ghana card in any District NIA office since December 2022. So, it is not the fault of the stubborn academy that we have not been able to register our SIM cards. It is not the fault of any Ghanaian that they have been able to register their SIMs,” he added.
Millions of Ghanaians had their SIM cards disconnected on May 31 after several extensions to have every citizen reregister their SIMs.
