Masiu urges operators to register Sim cards during grace period

COMMUNICATION and Information Technology Minister Timothy Masiu says mobile network operators should use the one-month extension period to register all unregistered Sim (subscriber identity module) cards.
He also urged the people not to use the Covid-19 as an excuse not to register their Sim cards.
Masiu said the deadlines had already been extended several times and would not be extended.
The deadline for Sim card registration was extended from July 31 to Aug 31 for urban areas and Sept 30 for rest of the country, to allow communication access due to the increase in the Covid-19 cases.
“The Covid-19 should not be used as an excuse, people should go and register their Sim cards,” Masiu told The National yesterday .
He said from the updates he received from service providers, Telikom and bmobile had done well with 98 per cent (of Sim card registration) completed while Digicel was doing its part as it had a nationwide coverage both in urban and rural areas.
“Digicel is doing their bit as well,” he said. “They are everywhere in the major centres and rural areas as well and we hope they (Digicel) are using the one month we gave for the urban areas and the two months for the rural areas.
“It’s really up to the service providers,” he said.
“It’s for them (service providers) to go out there and make sure that customers are registered.
“As the Government, we have set the deadlines and we keep moving the deadlines and we cannot continue moving them.
“It has to come to an end sometime.
“This is because it went through the courts, the court cleared the process to take place and we started, and then we had the surge in Covid-19 cases as we were heading towards the deadline, so we gave one month’s extension,” Masiu said.