MTN Ghana spends GH¢11.5m on phone registeration

Before the nationwide phone registeration which is widely referred to as ‘SIM registeration’, scheduled to have ended on June 30, 2011 was postponed for another 90 days, by the National Communications Authority (NCA), MTN Ghana says it has spent GH¢11.5 million on the exercise.

Briefing editors in Accra last week, the CEO, Mr. Michael Ikpoki said the mobile provider has set up over 20,000 registeration points across the country to facilitate registeration of its customers.

He indicated that 88 percent of MTN subscribers have registered so far.

Mr. Ikpoki said new subscribers who will port onto the MTN network when Mobile Number Portability (MNP) begins July 7, 2011, will get free SIM backup. MNP is the process which, allows a mobile subscriber of a network ‘B’ to move to network ‘A’ and still keep his or her number, including the code. Originally, MNP was scheduled to have begun today, Friday July 1, 2011, but was postponed to July 7.

“In view of the fact that July 1 to 3 is a public holiday weekend, and that passage of the Legislative Instrument comprising the MNP Regulations is expected on July 6, the mobile operators, Porting Access, and NCA have jointly decided to set the formal launch for July 7, 2011”, the NCA said in a statement to the media.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi