The National Communications Authority (NCA) on Friday said a total of 433,246 unregistered SIM cards had been deactivated at the close of the registration process on March 3.

Users of these SIM Cards failed to adhere to and met the deadline for the national directive for registration of all SIM Cards, Mr Paarock Vanpercy, NCA Director General stated at a press conference in Accra to update the public on operational expiration of the SIM card registration.

He explained that additional 1,091,645 inactive invalid SIM cards were also deactivated whilst a total of 1,524,891 SIM Cards which had not been used for the last three months were also deactivated.

Mr Vanpercy said the NCA had extended another window of opportunity to all holders of Active SIM Cards with default registration data to contact their mobile companies for re-registration.

The NCA Director General explained that holders of default active SIM Cards had been granted a one-way communication leeway- “They can only receive calls and SMS messages but cannot make calls or send SMS messages”.

He advised holders of default active SIM Cards to take full advantage of the opportunity to complete the registration process with their mobile operators.

Mr Vanpercy said the NCA would continue to monitor and evaluate the process periodically to ensure total compliance.

The NCA on July 1, 2010 gave a year's ultimatum to all mobile phone operators in the country to collect information aimed at identifying existing and new subscribers to their respective networks.

At the expiration of the one year SIM Card Registration on June 30, 2011, the NCA gave additional 90-day mop-up period following which a review of progress of the entire exercise was conducted with a view to bringing it to closure.

According to the NCA the registration was to offer subscribers an opportunity to improve their chances of seeking replacement of their SIM cards in the event of loss.

It was also aimed at increasing subscribers’ power of choice in a more competitive market noting that one of the reasons for the registration exercise was to pave way for the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) which has since been launched with a good degree of success.